here Etsy outperforms Amazon

Addressable and programmatic TV ad spending continues to rise as the TV industry undergoes technological change.

Our latest forecast shows that Amazon, Walmart, and eBay will remain the top three largest ecommerce companies in the US by total sales volume, while Best Buy and Target will usurp The Home Depot and Wayfair for the No. 5 and No. 6 spots on the 2021 list, respectively.

A direct-to-consumer (D2C) strategy wasn’t top-of-mind when soda brand Olipop launched in 2017. In fact, during its first year of business, the brand didn’t even have a website—primarily relying on retail brick-and-mortar partnerships to drive sales. But last year, everything changed.

The pandemic has shifted the grocery landscape this year, accelerating digital groceries faster than we previously anticipated. Kroger—who’s digital investments over the years have helped the company navigate amid the pandemic—will see its ecommerce sales surpass $11 billion this year, growing over 79% in 2020.

Grocery ecommerce is continuing to have a moment as more consumers get in the habit of shopping this way.

TV ad spending takes a hit as marketers adjust their budgets amid a recession.

With much of the US still under stay-at-home orders, consumers are growing more accustomed to grocery shopping online. Brick-and-mortars, delivery startups and ecommerce retailers are adapting to the new normal, but even leaders in online grocery like Amazon and Walmart have struggled to keep up with demand.

With the impact of the coronavirus still ricocheting throughout the economy, it can be difficult to envision retail one day returning to normal. And yet, somehow it will—and much of it will look virtually indistinguishable from the pre-crisis reality. But certain changes in consumer behavior will be lasting.

As uncertainty over coronavirus continues to grow, consumers are becoming more cautious about shopping in public places and are utilizing online shopping as a means of getting necessities.

This past year, we sat down with several retailers to learn more about their marketing efforts, the channels they rely on most, and how they’re adapting to the continuous change in consumer behavior.

Looking to reach college students during the back-to-school shopping season, grocery retailer Kroger turned to one of the marketing world’s buzziest new platforms: TikTok.

It’s now been more than a year since TikTok launched in the US, and in that short period, the Chinese-owned short-form video app has capitalized on the viral nature of its platform by partnering with a number of brands and slowly unveiling a slew of advertising capabilities.

Larger retailers are beginning to act more like digital media companies by leveraging their web traffic and first-party customer data into ad businesses.

While the lure of retail media is even stronger than it seems, retailers grapple with whether it’s a viable opportunity or a shiny new object to chase.

TikTok, the Chinese short-video app, is taking off in the US, India and elsewhere. It offers many unique marketing opportunities, such as the Hashtag Challenge, but marketers should take note of some risks.

AmazonFresh, Amazon Pantry and Amazon’s Whole Foods operation cater specifically to the consumer packaged goods (CPG) market. But almost none of the retail giant’s CPG sales come from Amazon-branded goods.

US ecommerce grocery is the fastest growing product category online, and this year we estimate that US food and beverage ecommerce sales will grow 23% to $22.63 billion. Buy online, pick up in store (BOPUS) is one of the key drivers of this growth.

Grocery is the least penetrated but fastest-growing category in ecommerce today. Traditional brands and retailers need to understand why this channel shift is accelerating and adjust their marketing and selling strategies accordingly.

Last year, the number of locations offering “buy online, pick up in-store” (BOPUS) nearly doubled among leading US grocery retailers. Walmart (and various third-party partners), Target/Shipt, Kroger/Instacart, Ahold and Albertsons brought their collective number of click-and-collect locations from 2,451 in January 2018 to 5,800 in December 2018, per data from CommonSense Robotics.