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.

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.

Small-format stores are gaining popularity among retailers trying to get closer to where consumers live and work. Some retailers, like Macy’s, are using small-format stores to reach consumers in more urban locations. But others, like Target, are going for a slightly different demographic—college students.

On today's podcast episode, we discuss the unofficial list of the most interesting retailers in July, focusing on back-to-school initiatives for this episode. 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 vice president of content Suzy Davidkhanian and analyst Sky Canaves, who will dispute the power rankings by attempting to move retailers up, down, on, or off the list.

Are millennials pulling away from Amazon? While they were the one demographic group whose Prime Day spending dropped year over year, they continued to spend on other retailers’ sites.

Best Buy looks to distinguish itself from the competition: The struggling retailer refreshes its online and offline presences to turn around its two-year slump.

Prime Day 2024 shatters records yet again as consumers stock up on essentials: Shoppers spent $14.2 billion online, spurred by significant discounts and the chance to get a head start on back-to-school needs.

Consumers take a cautious approach to back-to-school shopping: To drive shoppers to spend, Macy’s revamped its Epic Threads brand, Kohl’s added Limited Too, and Old Navy offered cash back.

Retail media is the fastest-growing ad channel we track in the US, driven by new innovations, inventory growth, and new players launching media networks. Here’s a look at some of the biggest retail media moves from the first six months of 2024.

Amazon Prime Day conditioned shoppers to expect bargains in July: That’s driven Google, Target, Walmart, and others to seize on the opportunity to drive consumers to spend.

Retailers are racing to implement genAI-powered virtual assistants capable of creating human-like responses and handling complex queries. But there are challenges to overcome.

Brands’ customer experience is declining: Consumers are frustrated over shrinkflation and AI customer service, forcing retailers to do more to demonstrate their value to cautious shoppers.

On today's podcast episode, we discuss the unofficial list of the most interesting retailers for the month of May. 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 Sky Canaves and Zak Stambor, who will dispute the power rankings by attempting to move retailers up, down, on, or off the list.

Retail media has matured greatly since our 5 retail media networks (RMNs) worth watching. That evolution has come from growth in spend (we forecast US omnichannel retail media ad spend growth at 26.0% this year, with larger increases in off-site and connected TV), in-store innovations, and new entrants from other non-retailers.

Best Buy, CNET partner for unique retail media offering: Advertisers will be able to purchase and measure ads across both sites, while CNET content will be featured across Best Buy’s stores, site, and app.

Amazon will continue to gain market share, but new competition from Temu, Walmart, and other retailers could stunt future dominance.

Ecommerce growth accelerated during the 2023 holiday season as US consumers shifted more of their shopping to mobile devices.

Retail media will make huge gains this year in Canada. Our first-ever forecast for retail media ad spending in Canada and our joint survey of ad buyers (conducted with IAB Canada) highlight the latest developments.

In January, the Retail Daily newsletter editors made four retail predictions for 2023. Some we got right (like the proliferation of Amazon Prime Day-type events) while some we missed the mark on a bit (it was not the year of AR).