eMarketer principal analyst Andrew Lipsman discusses Amazon Prime competitor Walmart+, and Amazon's first cashierless supermarket. He also talks about why Shopify joined Facebook's cryptocurrency efforts, and Etsy's automatic advertising idea.

We forecast that 37.5 million people in the US will watch streaming video on Twitch at least monthly in 2020, meaning the video streaming platform will reach 15.5% of US digital video viewers this year. At its current pace, Twitch will surpass 40 million US users by the end of 2021, according to our first ever forecast for the platform.

Since rolling out one-day shipping last year, Amazon has seen an acceleration in growth. We expect Amazon’s worldwide ecommerce sales to reach $404 billion by the end of this year.

Target’s increased focus on building its ecommerce business has been paying off. The big-box retailer, which used to rank No. 11 in the US in terms of ecommerce sales, has now surpassed three competitors to become No. 8. Our latest ranking of the nation’s top retailers by online sales shows strong growth for Target’s ecommerce business, while that of QVC and HSN owner Qurate Retail Group will decline.

eMarketer principal analyst Andrew Lipsman and senior forecasting analyst Cindy Liu preview eMarketer's upcoming report and forecast on the top 10 ecommerce companies in the US.

At a life stage that entails lots of buying, millennials are combining digital and in-store shopping in ways that work best for them.

The video streaming industry has become more competitive than ever, and marketers are figuring out how to build media plans around the fragmented market.

Ecommerce sales in Spain will grow faster than any other country in Western Europe in the next three years, propelled by the rise of AliExpress and its continued competition with Amazon to be the go-to marketplace.

Amazon, which already holds a dominant position in the US smart speaker market, will continue to maintain this leadership through 2021, with approximately 70% of total US smart speaker users expected to use an Amazon Echo device, according to our latest estimates.

Younger generations are more likely to buy products based on influencer recommendations, as well as consider them reliable. However, these demographics still see influencers as less trustworthy than other sources.

The 2019 holiday season posted modest retail sales growth amid a strong consumer economy but challenging calendar. With more economic risks ahead, the 2020 season may be even more challenged for growth.

AI has been a hot topic for a while, and attitudes about the technology vary throughout Western Europe. Still, companies are adopting AI to improve business results.

UK consumers continue to spend. However, as the realities of Brexit finally hit in 2020, the purse strings will tighten. And with ecommerce becoming an ever-greater portion of total UK retail sales, the effect on the high street will be marked. A hard delineation between the online and offline worlds isn’t necessarily helpful, though, as those lines between “clicks and bricks” continue to blur.

Connected vehicles are changing how people think about mobility. They also have important implications for marketers, who are experimenting with ways to tap the data they produce to engage consumers and drive new revenues.

In June 2019, former Snapchat chief strategy officer Imran Khan set out to shake up the marketplace landscape, including Amazon, when he launched ecommerce platform Verishop. We recently spoke with Khan about how Verishop is helping direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands scale, as well as its ongoing efforts to give consumers a new way to discover products.

Retailers across Western Europe are pioneering the use of AI to boost digital sales, and new options for delivery and returns are emerging. Yet Europe’s main markets have been slow to embrace social commerce.

Consumer adoption of online grocery—led primarily by Amazon and Walmart—saw hockey-stick growth last year. As these two Goliaths vie for market control, conflicting reports have made it difficult to determine who has the momentum, and where consumers prefer to shop.

Most consumers want a product delivered the second they order it, and Amazon is betting on that behavior to drive more sales by offering free one-day shipping on Prime-eligible products. An October 2019 CivicScience survey found that a plurality of US internet users would rather order a low-cost item (less than $5) via Amazon than buy it in-store.

Historically, most marketers have equated search with general search engines—especially Google. But many of consumers’ most commercially oriented queries are entered directly on retail sites. And for the most part, that means Amazon.

Aptly named D2C brand Brandless, an online purveyor of minimalist grocery, wellness and home goods, has oriented its brand around the rise of digital-first shoppers who prefer products that include fewer, more natural ingredients. These shoppers have an evolving view of brands and don’t harbor any particular affinity for household names they grew up with.