On today's episode, we discuss the players in the advertising space—besides Meta, Google, and Amazon—that have created a billion-dollar ad business and which ones are close to gaining membership to the billion-dollar ad club. "In Other News," we talk about a refresh to the Federal Trade Commission's digital ad guidance and what Amazon's worldwide consumer chief stepping down means for the retail giant. Tune in to the discussion with our analysts Andrew Lipsman and Max Willens.

Beijing’s zero-COVID policy wreaks havoc on the global supply chain: Lockdowns in Shenzhen and Dongguan make it harder and more expensive for retailers like Amazon and Walmart to deliver goods to overseas shoppers.

Amazon will accept Visa credit cards across all of its sites—without surcharges—after reaching a global agreement.

Prime Video bets content will draw international viewers: Amazon’s streaming service is investing to create regional shows in Europe and Asia.

How should businesses view these global trends and events? How are behaviors and spending changing? In this report, Insider Intelligence analysts weigh in on the questions they’re being asked by both clients and the media about the shifting landscape in key areas like digital advertising, retail and ecommerce, and financial services.

Direct-to-consumer (D2C) ecommerce growth has slowed since 2020, but the leading digitally native brands remain popular. In December 2021, the Peloton website raked in 6.7 million visits worldwide, far more than the sites of Warby Parker, Casper, and other top digital natives in the D2C space.

Google Cloud is losing billions of dollars: Feature parity with AWS and Azure, greater global availability, and pivoting toward enterprise customers could help it regain momentum in the cloud services segment.

The pandemic was disastrous for many retailers; we estimate that total retail sales worldwide plunged 2.8% in 2020. Though, while many physical stores were shuttered, digital retail sales soared by over 25% in a single year.

Shopify works with ecommerce giant JD.com to help its merchants sell in China: The deal marks a major push into China for Shopify and broadens JD.com’s international reach.

We expect relatively strong performance on Prime Day despite a slow start to the year for Amazon and other etailers.

Amazon has been bringing Amazon One, a biometric-based terminal that enables authentication with a palm scan, to its own retail locations and other venues. And though they only comprise a fraction of the market, startups like FinGo and VisionLabs are using vein mapping and facial recognition, respectively, in their terminal products.

To capitalize on the opportunity, payment providers will deepen their push into the B2B space: Global Payments just acquired accounts payable automation fintech MineralTree for $500 million, for example.

ACI Worldwide. Adyen. American Express. Bloomberg. Boston Consulting Group. The Business Times. Capgemini. Digital Transactions. EVO Payments. FIS. Fiserv. Finextra. Global Payments. Global Processing. International Monetary Fund. Infinicept and AZ Payments Group. Lightspeed. Marqeta. Mastercard. McKinsey. Nasdaq. NerdWallet. The Nilson Report. NCR. National Payments Corporation of India.

Apple is now the third-largest retailer in the US in terms of online sales, after Amazon and Walmart. Online grocery sales will help preserve double-digit ecommerce sales growth for stores like Walmart, Target, Kroger, and Costco in 2022. II: What will you be watching for over the next six months?

Watching subscription over-the-top (sub OTT) video has become one of the most popular activities in the world, and the worldwide user numbers for sub OTT have become commensurately huge. Netflix remains a driving force in this digital transformation.