Consumers have their environmental impact top of mind and it’s informing how they shop. Nearly 70% of consumers seek out brands that follow sustainable business practices, according to research from Amazon Ads.

Amazon is projected to take the lion’s share of US holiday season retail ecommerce sales this year, beating out its closest competitor, Walmart, by over $80 billion, according to our June 2023 forecast.

Dramatic shifts are in the works for 2024, as genAI, changing media norms, and innovative commerce redefine the business landscape. Our top nine trends explore what’s in store.

Brands that engage in non-endemic advertising by purchasing ad inventory from a retailer that does not sell its goods or services are well positioned to take advantage of the partner platform’s first-party data, audience segmentation, and overall reach.

On today's podcast episode, in our "Retail Me This, Retail Me That" segment, we discuss whether TikTok Shop will face the same challenges as Instagram's social commerce efforts, how much Amazon's partnership with Meta's social media platforms will affect TikTok, and if TikTok Shop is ruining TikTok. Then in a newish segment, "Loyalty Point, Counter Point," we discuss whether Instagram or TikTok has a better overall ecommerce experience. Join our analyst Sara Lebow as she hosts analysts Sky Canaves and Blake Droesch.

How does social media influence Gen Z’s customer journey?

HomeGoods shut down its ecommerce business because in October it was unable to recreate the in-store treasure-hunting experience customers know and love online. Meanwhile, Amazon is struggling to master brick-and-mortar because it doesn’t know what in-store shoppers want.

Frictionless online checkouts allow consumers to click, pay, and complete purchases for exactly what they were looking for—but less so for what they weren’t necessarily expecting to find. For retailers, encouraging impulse purchases online requires a different strategy than at brick-and-mortar stores that capitalize on physical displays to prompt low-consideration additions to shoppers’ carts.

How do consumers discover, evaluate, and purchase new brands and products?

his year, US holiday retail sales growth will align more closely with rates seen pre-pandemic, with ecommerce returning to double-digit growth at 11.3% YoY, according to our June forecast.

US B2B ecommerce growth is outpacing B2B product and electronic sales growth—but at a slow rate. Buyers’ preference for third-party marketplaces (e.g., Amazon Business) is fueling growth, pushing sellers to consider ecommerce solutions and third-party platforms to reach buyers and meet their procurement expectations.

ByteDance's CapCut dives into the business sector: The popular app is introducing AI-driven tools to help content marketers.

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.