A truncated holiday spending period with fewer days between Thanksgiving and Christmas and the election will throw a curveball to retail sales this season, our analyst Sky Canaves said on an episode of the “Behind the Numbers: Reimagining Retail” podcast. In-store retail will see healthy growth, consumers will continue holding back on splurges, and mobile will uplift overall ecommerce. Here are three trends we’re predicting for the upcoming holiday season.

Amazon and Walmart scoop up beauty sales as shoppers search for convenience: Our Industry KPIs data shows that the two account for the majority of purchase intent clicks in the beauty and personal care category.

The Trade Desk is developing a CTV operating system: Its ambitions could trigger a new age in CTV advertising and potentially upend the balance of power.

48% of US retail business decision-makers say video ads drive the biggest return on ad spend (ROAS) on Amazon, according to March 2024 data by Zogby Analytics and Feedvisor.

When it comes to retail memberships, Amazon is the leader, boasting 97.2 million household Amazon Prime members across the US, nearly three-quarters of the country’s total households, per our forecast. Taking a page from Amazon’s playbook, retailers like Walmart, Best Buy, and Target are using their own members-only sales events to build out their retail memberships.

Walmart’s digital ad revenue grew 26% in Q2 2024, ahead of Amazon’s 20% growth, according to the company’s earnings.

Digital technologies are reshaping customers' in-store payment experience. Here’s what payment providers must know about in-store payment digitization trends.​

Amazon received 236.9 million unique US visitors in June 2024, according to Comscore. It far exceeded Walmart in second with 137.2 million unique visitors.

Retailers faced no shortage of challenges in the first half of the year as elevated interest rates, the lingering effects of inflation, and a loosening labor market weighed on consumer spending. In this report, we’ll contextualize our coverage of retailers’ Q2 revenues across four key verticals: department stores, home, mass merchants, and off-price.

US apparel ecommerce sales are set to reach $263.18 billion by 2028. To take advantage of this opportunity, brands and retailers need to understand online sales trends as well as shopper behaviors and preferences.​

In August, brands got physical, with Olipop entering a new stadium, Nordstrom inking a deal with Rihanna, and Walmart growing with nonendemic retail media opportunities. Others took a more digital approach, making shopping more seamless on social media sites and AI-powered search. Here are the moves that made our analysts name eight brands to our unofficial most interesting list in August. 

Gen Z shoppers embrace Temu, Shein, and TikTok Shop: 1 in 4 makes a purchase at a Chinese online marketplace at least once a week, as their array of cheap, trendy goods proves impossible for the price-sensitive cohort to resist.

YouTube, Netflix, and Amazon are Gen Alpha’s coolest brands, per an August 2024 report by Beano Brain that surveyed more than 55,000 kids under 14. To foster relationships with the generation that not only has growing spending power of its own, but also influences parent purchases, marketers will have to understand its evolving digital habits.

On today's podcast episode, we discuss the unofficial list of the most interesting retailers for the month of August. Each month, our analysts Arielle Feger, Becky Schilling, and Sara Lebow (aka The Committee) put together a very unofficial list of the top eight retailers they're watching based on which are making the most interesting moves: Who's launching new initiatives? Which partnerships are moving the needle? Which standout marketing campaigns are being created? In this month's episode, Committee members Arielle Feger and Sara Lebow will defend their list against analysts Blake Droesch and Sarah Marzano, who will dispute the power rankings by attempting to move retailers up, down, on, or off the list.

The Asia-Pacific retail ecommerce sector is both dynamic and volatile. While China and Japan are slowing, South Korea is growing rapidly, and emerging markets like Southeast Asia and India are showing robust growth and untapped potential.

Shein was the No. 1 apparel retail site among US visitors in June, with 46.9 million unique visits, according to Comscore data.

A controversial “active listening” targeting method reinforces privacy needs: Cox Media Group’s proposal reignited concerns about the ethical boundaries of ad targeting.

This year, US holiday sales will reach a record $1.353 trillion, per our July 2024 forecast. That holiday season is starting earlier and earlier, which means marketers need to be prepared now for shopping to pick up in September and October. The election and consumer concerns about the economy will complicate where advertisers reach consumers and what messaging they use. Here are five stats marketers should see as they prep their holiday campaigns.

US retail and ecommerce sales will maintain stable growth over the next five years, with pockets of opportunity emerging from new digital consumers and mobile-first online shopping trends.

After years of turbulence, UK ecommerce sales are growing again, albeit slowly. And there won’t be a significant shift over the next five years.