Consumer behaviors will be shaped by continued uncertainty, heightened in an election year, and cultural trends spilling over into commerce (think Krispy Kreme and Ozempic). Retailers that lean into tech advancements and get back to basics will win.

The average Temu user spent 18 minutes per day on the company’s app: That’s nearly double the 10 minutes they spent on Amazon’s app.

’Tis the season for a deluge of holiday ads, as everyone tries to score a piece of the $1.317 trillion holiday sales pie (per our June 2023 forecast). To break through the noise, brands need to zero in on what resonates with consumers—and maybe even have a little fun.

The UK’s resale economy is thriving as shoppers look to save money and live more sustainably. Retailers and brands need to act—or risk losing out.

“The misconception in my mind is that you can ignore [generative AI],” Vincent Yates, chief data scientist of consulting firm Credera, said at Advertising Week New York 2023.

Ecommerce sales will return to double-digit growth this holiday season amid a backdrop of healthy consumer spending.

As brands seek to diversify the number of places they sell their goods, retailers should consider building out a marketplace model that can help brands reach more customers while also cutting down on retailer costs and creating new revenue streams. You don’t need to be Amazon to launch a third-party marketplace—Macy’s, Michaels, and H&M have all gotten marketplaces off the ground in the last year or so.

Retail media ads are an important way to boost marketplace spend, but how brands go about advertising requires strategy. When setting up your retail media approach this holiday season, consider which products sell when, what kinds of ads drive conversions, and the importance of discovery in retail media.

eBay’s consignment business is its latest play for luxury shoppers: The marketplace is betting on luxury to turn its fortunes around.

Amazon wants to compete with FedEx and UPS: The retailer relaunched its Amazon Shipping service, which delivers products sold on Amazon's marketplace, sellers’ own websites, and other sites and marketplaces.

eBay recently posted ad revenues of $367 million in Q2 2023—a growth of 35% YoY—in its latest earnings. But much of that can be tied to innovation in its ad types, improved measurement capabilities, and expanded third-party ads. eBay’s market also gives it a retail media opportunity outside of consumer packaged goods (CPG). Let’s break down what eBay is doing right.

The initial wave of excitement over generative AI is fading, leaving many retailers asking, “Now what?” Some might want to look toward Shopify, which is incorporating generative AI capabilities across its platform to help sellers build and scale their businesses more quickly. Or maybe take a cue from eBay, which is using the tech to make more accurate and helpful product recommendations. Meanwhile, Etsy is working to democratize access to machine learning models to help speed up deployment across its organization.

UK retail sales are performing better than expected, with consumers still spending despite high inflation—but ecommerce will lose further share this year as shoppers continue returning to stores and cut nonessential spending.

US ecommerce marketplaces will account for $384.57 billion in sales this year, a growth of 10.2% over 2022, according to our forecast. That growth will accelerate through the end of our forecast period in 2027, at which point sales will surpass $600 billion. “Amazon has really written the playbook for operating a successful marketplace in the US,” said our analyst Sky Canaves. Here’s a closer look at how the three biggest US ecommerce marketplaces stack up.

Amazon sits at the top of US ecommerce, accounting for 37.6% of sales this year, according to our forecast. In addition to generating billions of dollars in sales, Amazon’s ecommerce business propels its other ventures, including retail media and B2B ecommerce. By harnessing the power of generative AI, Amazon could leave its retail competition even further in the dust, and possibly catch up to the Google and Meta duopoly.

The pandemic ecommerce boom that drove online sales is over. But marketplaces will continue to expand their share of US retail ecommerce, contributing almost 40% of the $588 billion in US online sales growth that we forecast over the next five years.

Though we’ve downgraded our retail media forecast, we anticipate the channel will experience double-digit growth through 2027. “I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that retail media is one of the most important and potentially most transformative ad spending channels in media right now,” said our analyst Max Willens.

In China, ecommerce channel ad spending represents over 38% of total digital ad spending, and ecommerce search spending accounts for 64.0% of total search. Could the US figures reach similar heights?