Vinted moves to cash in on US consumers’ rising appetite for resale: The platform will spend millions to establish a foothold in the market.

The news: Klarna partnered with Poshmark so US buyers can resell Klarna purchases on Poshmark through the Klarna app. Our take: Gen Zers have a hunger for low-cost fashion. As fast fashion brands face mounting tariff pressures, Gen Zers may turn toward resale marketplaces to some from someone else’s closet—and use sales from their own closet to fund that shopping.

If ad dollars shrink, Meta and others may need to ditch risky side projects and focus on scalable, affordable services to survive the slowdown

In January, the most interesting retailers capitalized on New Year’s trends like resolutions, lower-alcohol consumption, and an influx of holiday returns. Poshmark and Sephora introduced new partnerships, while Amazon and Temu increased their own retail media-related offerings. Here are the eight most significant retail developments of January 2024, ranked by their potential market impact.

On today's podcast episode, we discuss the unofficial list of the most interesting retailers for the month of January. Each month, our analysts Arielle Feger, Becky Schilling, and Sara Lebow (aka The Committee) put together a very unofficial list of the top eight retailers they're watching based on which are making the most interesting moves: Who's launching new initiatives? Which partnerships are moving the needle? Which standout marketing campaigns are being created? In this month's episode, Committee members Analyst Arielle Feger and Senior Analyst Sara Lebow will defend their list against Senior Analyst Zak Stambor and Analyst Rachel Wolff, who will dispute the power rankings by attempting to move retailers up, down, on, or off the list.

Retail returns will top $1 trillion in 2025: But growth will slow as retailers impose stricter policies, albeit at the risk of hurting sales.

Amazon and Google are enhancing their visual search tools as consumers seek more seamless, intuitive ways to search for products online.

ThredUp tests peer-to-peer marketplace model as losses pile up: The resale platform is in need of a reset as it struggles to navigate an uncertain economic environment.

Live shopping sparks interest in younger shoppers: So far, the format is most successful as a community-building exercise for brands.

Our revised US resale forecast reflects a slowdown for the ecommerce-dominated market, as the cost of selling one-of-a-kind items online comes into focus.

To keep campaigns new and relevant, Poshmark leans on AI to enhance product images and refresh video assets. The fashion resale platform has also employed AI to help it translate TV ads into different languages to scale campaigns across countries.

Retailers hold firm on live shopping despite sluggish US adoption: TikTok Shop made the format a cornerstone of its ecommerce strategy, while Macy’s and Poshmark see early progress.

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.

Free returns are becoming more elusive: Retailers are turning to final sales more often to get rid of unwanted inventory and eliminate the possibility of returns.

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.

US fashion online resale platform sales will increase 15.8% this year, totaling $14.14 billion, according to our forecast. Sales will continue to grow by double-digit rates through 2026, when they will reach $23.92 billion.

Secondhand shopping is soaring: We expect resale volumes will grow more than twice as fast as total US retail sales through 2026.

Online fashion resale remains a fast-growing retail channel despite ongoing economic headwinds—and Gen Z is the driving force. How can brands and retailers venturing into fashion resale find success amid pullbacks on discretionary spending?

Economic uncertainty caused investors to grow cautious: Even so, there were several significant acquisitions in 2022.