Buy now, pay later (BNPL) will play a major role in how consumers shop this holiday season as they seek out budget-friendly ways to pay. To capture a bigger share of holiday sales, BNPL provider Klarna has introduced a new suite of tools to help bridge the digital-physical gap with AI-powered technology and shoppable media.

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

Amazon and Walmart build out their delivery infrastructure: Both companies look to boost the speed and efficiency with which they fulfill shoppers’ online orders.

US retail digital ad spend will grow 14.2% next year to reach $84.00 billion, or 28.6% of total digital ad spend, per our forecast.

Despite the rise of ecommerce, nearly 85% of US retail sales still occur in-store, according to our forecast. To attract customers to physical stores, brands must continually innovate to offer memorable experiences.

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.

With the start of Q4, the holiday season is officially here. That means holiday returns will be piling up soon.

Toys R Us looks to fill a hole in the retail landscape: It plans to rapidly expand its physical presence by opening up to two dozen flagship stores.

As brands look for innovative ways to keep customers engaged with their loyalty programs, they are shifting their focus from just offering incentives and rewards to generating real relationships with customers based on what they actually want and need, said a speaker during a recent Tech Talk Webinar. Here are three ways that brands can put the customers at the heart of their loyalty program in order to create long-lasting connections.

On today’s podcast episode, host Bill Fisher is joined by our researcher Man-Chung Cheung and analyst Carina Perkins to examine TikTok’s ecommerce plans around the world, looking at what’s driven success in some markets and held it back in others.

Ecommerce success relies on a seamless search strategy. To help consumers find, learn, and buy products more easily, retailers are building out their on-site search capabilities, adding video, incorporating AI, and giving shoppers more tools to find what they are looking for. Here are some of the latest improvements from Walmart, Amazon, and Instacart.

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.

Walmart has the largest audience of any digital grocery platform. But our survey found that Amazon Fresh customers were more active and willing to try new products.

Brands must balance personalization with privacy considerations and ensure product pages are comprehensive and complete. Lower-funnel ad tactics and easily accessible shipping and returns info also help to encourage purchases. Here are four strategies to boost online conversion rates.

Retail’s resilience and its outsized role in digital ad spending will help offset the impact of a broader slowdown in growth in the US digital advertising market.

Mobile wallet integration makes checking out more convenient, while composable commerce gives brands the ability to customize and alter their tech stacks to fit their specific needs. Generative AI helps to enhance personalization and product recommendations, and one-click checkout buttons speed up the payment process.

Amazon’s advertising division ranked highest in our Power of Amazon in 2023 report. Its retail ecommerce division, Amazon’s biggest business by dollars, lost share between our initial rankings in 2021 and our current forecast.

As consumers hunt for the best deals, generative AI will drive $194 billion in consumer spending by enabling brands to provide personalized customer service, marketing promotions, and commerce experiences, per Salesforce. Social media advertising will also have an outsized impact on purchase decisions versus traditional marketing efforts.

Ecommerce sales growth worldwide is poised to increase by 8.9% in 2023 after increasing by 6.5% in 2022, according to our forecast. While this growth trend will continue in 2024—reaching 9.4%—ecommerce sales growth worldwide will fall to 8.6% in 2025.

Digital activity now plays a major role in product discovery, with younger generations driving sizable shifts in the way shoppers find new products.