Amazon and Walmart are search advertising’s growth engines: The latter is a distant second to the former, accounting for nearly 4 in 10 non-Amazon retail media search ad dollars this year.

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

Walmart enhanced its online marketplace with new capabilities and seller solutions, the retailer announced at its annual Walmart Marketplace Seller Summit this week. Updates include the addition of premium beauty products, expanded fulfillment services, and revamped seller solutions.

Both retailers used generative AI to improve employee productivity in Q2—Walmart leveraged the tech to improve its product catalog and Target used it to enhance in-store employee tools. Target’s curbside pickup service helped it grow digital comparable sales 8.7% YoY, while Walmart’s marketplace and sales of GLP-1 drugs contributed to its 4.2% comp sales growth YoY.

US ad market grows 14% YoY in July: While spending continues, the industry remains cautious amid economic uncertainties and election-year volatility.

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.

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.

Walmart partners with Burger King to beef up Walmart+ perks: While the retailer focuses on appealing to its core customer base, Amazon makes a move for holiday and grocery sales.

More than 181 million people in the US will be Amazon Prime members this year, representing nearly 7 in 10 (73.7%) US internet users, according to our July 2024 forecast. Many of them turn to influencers before checking out; others can be won over by better discounts from competitor retailers; while some favor Amazon for fashion over groceries.

Amid shifting consumer priorities, competitive promotional activity, and an unusual calendar, brands and retailers must fine-tune their holiday 2024 marketing strategies to maximize sales during this critical period.

But usage of the payment option remained quite limited compared with the share of buyers who use BNPL at any point during the year

This is the first installment of our quarterly “Ad Spending Benchmarks” series, which helps ad buyers and sellers calibrate their spending and revenue mix against the market.

This is the first installment of our quarterly “Ad Spending Benchmarks” series, which helps ad buyers and sellers calibrate their spending and revenue mix against the market.