As the nation readies itself for Super Bowl Sunday, let’s review how this year has gone for the NFL. The league’s ratings for the 2022–2023 season were down 3% from the prior year, and there’s one big reason to blame: Amazon’s Thursday Night Football. Despite the drop, sports leagues will continue to move full steam ahead with exclusive streaming deals while Amazon waits for consumers to catch up.

Amazon was the most downloaded mobile shopping app in the US in 2022 as its reach continued to grow. Closing in on Amazon was Shein at No. 2, followed by Walmart, Fetch, and Shopify’s Shop app.

Advertisers and marketers can’t afford to waste budget, so we foresee a partial shift away from display ads and renewed emphasis on search—with one big exception, retail media.

Generous returns policies have encouraged shoppers to buy online, but an unsustainable wave of returned goods is forcing retailers to rethink their strategies.

Retail layoffs garner headlines but they’re not the full picture: The number of people working in retail continues to grow—we break it down.

TikTok is competing with just about everyone, according to our analyst Jasmine Enberg. Its lower costs per thousand are helping it pull ad share away from platforms like Meta, while its appeal to Gen Z consumers is pulling search dollars away from Google and Amazon. But it can play nice too, a strategy the platform has had to adopt in Washington to avoid a total US ban.

Amazon’s revenues rose 9% in Q4: While the company’s highly profitable retail media business continued its upward trend line, ecommerce sales fell 2% YoY.

Amazon seems poised to beat its lowered expectations: While the retail giant predicted its slowest-ever holiday season growth, analysts expect the retail giant’s Q4 sales still rose 6% YoY.

Grocers are less willing to put up with price hikes as inflation eases: Whole Foods is the latest retailer to ask suppliers to lower prices to relieve pressure on consumers.

Buy with Prime launch could be a turning point for Shopify: The ecommerce platform raised prices and diversified its retailer appeal to protect revenues, but could still take a hit should merchants flock to its biggest rival.

Discovery—not influencers—is what separates TikTok and Amazon’s ecommerce businesses: The retail giant is trying to replicate TikTok’s success via its “Inspire” video feed.

On today's episode, we discuss how Amazon's Thursday Night Football rights deal performed this year, the placement of sponsor logos on team uniforms, and superimposing digital logos around sports arenas. "In Other News," we talk about what we expect will happen to TV advertising in the US in 2023 and what to make of Nielsen One Ads now that it's here. Tune in to the discussion with our analysts Paul Verna and Max Willens.

We expect retail sales growth to slow to 2.9% this year: That pullback in spending is leading retailers to cut staff to protect their bottom lines.

Attracting and retaining retail employees isn’t easy: But it's critical to delivering a high-quality customer experience. That’s why Walmart and others are boosting wages.

Becoming Amazon’s strategic payments partner in the US, Canada, and Europe can help Stripe bolster its processing business.

See our latest industry KPIs for retail media.

Is Amazon’s RxPass too good to be true? We look at the pros and cons of the new program, which offers some generic prescriptions for a flat $5 per month.

Potential UPS strike hastens last-mile diversification: Rival FedEx, as well as local carriers and retailers’ logistics services, are reaping the rewards as companies try to minimize disruption.

Google’s ChatGPT conundrum: Generative AI is becoming a headache for the tech giant that wants to take the ethical high road while also staying competitive in a fast-moving market.

On today's episode, in our "Retail Me This, Retail Me That" segment, we discuss the power of Walmart: how Walmart is trying to stay in the online shopping race with Amazon, how Walmart+ is getting on, and what to make of its retail as a service offerings. Then for "Red-Hot Retail," our analysts give us four of their very specific—and potentially risky—predictions about the future of Walmart. Join our analyst Sara Lebow as she hosts analysts Sky Canaves and Blake Droesch.