Even before the pandemic, the direct-to-consumer (D2C) space was heating up in Western Europe. But the side effects of stay-at-home orders helped accelerate D2C’s popularity, and the landscape looks to be permanently altered.

The 2020 US holiday season posted better-than-expected retail sales growth, as huge ecommerce gains added to a surprisingly positive performance for brick-and-mortar retail. The early outlook for the 2021 holiday season is solid despite major economic uncertainty ahead.

In a letter to Amazon employees published Tuesday afternoon, Jeff Bezos announced that he would step down as CEO and transition to executive chairman, where he'll focus on "new products and early initiatives." Andy Jassy, who is currently CEO of Amazon Web Services, will replace him.

Amazon Prime Day 2020 will be unlike any other since its debut five years ago. Amid the backdrop of a pandemic and recessionary headwinds, this year’s event promises significant changes that will shake up the entire retail landscape heading into the holidays.

With the coronavirus pandemic leading to a significant economic slowdown, we’re providing updated guidance to our clients about what we expect for ad spending during the first half of this year.

More than two-thirds of shoppers (68%) surveyed in RetailMeNot’s annual Holiday Insights guide said this year’s compressed holiday shopping season will change the way they shop. About one-third (34%) said they will start looking for deals earlier than they did last year, and 28% plan to start buying gifts sooner than they did in 2018.

This follow-up to our Amazon Prime Day 2019 preview report analyzes the post-event results for Amazon and other retailers, and its implications for back-to-school season and beyond.

Last month, Amazon held its fifth annual Prime Day event to honor its Prime members with steep discounts and deals across a range of products and categories. This year’s midsummer shopping event—extended to 48 hours and held on July 15 and 16—racked up record sales, further cementing Amazon’s ecommerce leadership position, while creating incremental opportunities for sellers and competing retailers.

Amazon Prime Day serves as the unofficial kickoff to the back-to-school shopping season, and spending on back-to-school items is expected to reach $26.2 billion in 2019, according to the National Retail Federation (NRF).

The back-to-school shopping season is shifting from late- to midsummer, driven largely by events like Amazon Prime Day. Leveraging this change, online retailer Zulily is employing a mobile-focused strategy that pushes consumers to purchase all summer long.

Facebook, Google and Amazon are engaged in a game of thrones—an epic battle for digital supremacy. The anointed one will be whichever company stakes its claim to all three coins of the digital realm: media, advertising and commerce.

eMarketer principal analyst Andrew Lipsman explains how Amazon Prime Day complements the company’s flywheel of commerce, digital content and advertising. He also reviews estimates of how much business Amazon did on Prime Day and examines the event’s ripple effect on other retailers.

Despite protests, technical concerns and stiff competition from ecommerce rivals, Amazon managed to hold its most successful Prime Day yet. Though the company did not disclose its sales figures—or how many new Prime members were added—Amazon announced that it sold 175 million items during the two-day event and surpassed its combined sales total from Black Friday and Cyber Monday in 2018.

With Prime Day now in its fifth year, many Prime members have been conditioned to anticipate and prepare for the event.

Because shopping on smart speakers is gaining popularity faster than expected, we’ve raised our latest forecast for smart speaker use.

In April, Wayfair celebrated its second annual Way Day, a “holiday” dedicated to better-than-Black-Friday deals. The retailer saw double-digit sales growth over the first Way Day, as well as an increased number of orders and unique customers, according to an April 2019 report from Edison Trends. Better timing, an extended sales period and greater consumer offerings helped the retailer achieve these metrics.

Already firmly established in the US ecommerce market, Amazon is ramping up its international efforts. Prime is the primary driver behind its global growth, but the membership program looks very different from country to country.

Singles’ Day is the world’s biggest shopping event, and Black Friday is just around the corner. Holiday shopping is a major driver of retail and ecommerce around the world, but spending and which holidays drive the most activity vary by region.

Amazon aggressively discounted its own branded electronics for Prime Day this year, and the strategy seems to have worked as consumers scooped up Amazon Fire and Amazon Echo products.

Amazon Prime Day was just last month, but by hype-cycle standards July might as well be last year. Reports keep coming in, though, and are adding more color to the original narrative. The online giant said more than 100 million products were purchased during the event this year. And it looks like mobile is playing a larger part.