US ecommerce will continue to grow by double digits in 2019 amid a strong economic backdrop that is beginning to moderate compared with prior years.

Direct-to-consumer (D2C) companies continue to disrupt traditional retail, and taking note of their marketing investment strategies might benefit traditional retailers that see these digitally-native newborns as competition.

According to a March 2019 RetailMeNot study, internet users looking for more information in-store often skip approaching retail associates and go directly to their smartphones. Sixty-nine percent of respondents said they would look for reviews on their phone first, and 53% would search for deals before speaking with an employee.

This year, ecommerce is set to be 10.9% of total US retail spending—about one-eighth the size of retail brick-and-mortar. The general merchandise category will account for about 50% of total retail sales this year, and that number climbs to roughly 67% when you look at strictly online general merchandise sales.

Nearly half of the 182 worldwide retail professionals polled by Retail Systems Research (RSR) said that online competitors are innovating too quickly, and it's hard to keep up, while almost as many were concerned about consumer price sensitivity.

Retailers have been implementing in-store tech and omnichannel options to meet the perceived demands of the modern shopper. A recent RIS News survey found many US internet users are interested in shopping options like "grab and go" technology, while fewer were keen on virtual reality or robots.

Loyalty programs are a natural way to collect first-party data, but they suffer from low activity due to consumer dissatisfaction. We examine can be done to deliver rewards to customers and the marketers running the programs.

When it comes to ad targeting, many marketers look to cross-device strategies to better identify households or individuals—and an increasing number look to do both.

Only 5% of senior marketers in North America surveyed by CMO Council and RedPoint Global in March 2018 said they could deliver data-driven experiences in real time across channels.