At the heart of Amazon's flywheel is Amazon Prime—a subscription service that includes a wide variety of perks such as discounts on select items, expedited shipping, and online videos, games, and music, to name a few.

On today's episode, we discuss why Amazon is diving into department stores, what they might look like, and what kind of impact they might have. We then talk about how some other retail giants fared in Q2, whether the online shopping boom has run its course, and where Warby Parker and Allbirds go from here. Tune in to the discussion with eMarketer principal analyst at Insider Intelligence Andrew Lipsman.

The number of US social buyers on Pinterest grew 30.5% in 2020, for a total of 12.0 million, per our estimates. By the end of 2021, that number will grow another 16.4% to reach 13.9 million.

Robots are taking over warehouses

McDonald’s, Apple led in spending among US out-of-home advertisers in 2020

Following a major shift to online retail in 2020, retail ecommerce sales will continue to grow by double digits through 2023 and make up an increasing share of total retail sales worldwide.

About a third of K-12 students have already returned to class amid a fourth COVID-19 wave. While, earlier this year, analysts had predicted a very optimistic back-to-school (BTS) season for retailers and brands, not all is lost: Many parents still want to make school-related firsts and rites of passage as “normal” as possible for their children.

The computing products and consumer electronics industry saw increased revenues in 2020, and that bump will accelerate digital ad spending for years to come.

Read the latest retail stories from Insider Intelligence.

In 2021, Amazon will account for 41.4% of all US retail ecommerce sales. The tech giant will contribute more than 50% of US growth in online sales from 2019 to 2021. We estimate Amazon’s ecommerce sales will rise by $168.53 billion in that time frame, to reach a staggering $386.40 billion by the end of this year.

During the pandemic-induced lockdowns in 2020, many UK-based shoppers confined to their homes saw little need to shop for apparel, and even now, as restrictions ease, apparel will still not be a consumer focus.

Following mixed effects of the pandemic in 2020, the US retail, consumer packaged goods (CPG), and entertainment industries are rebounding in 2021.

Nonstore retailers like Amazon and Wayfair, which operate solely online, are dominating the US ecommerce market.

The pandemic supercharged ecommerce sales in the US, accelerating the digital market about two years into the future in terms of its penetration of total retail sales.

Aussies love their social commerce! Or so it would seem, based on eMarketer’s inaugural forecast for social buying in Australia.

Where are people buying into social buying?

We expect US social commerce sales to rise by 35.8% in 2021 to $36.62 billion. That’s only a slight deceleration in growth from 2020, when sales surged by 38.9% thanks to the pandemic-driven boom in ecommerce, increased social media consumption, and brands continuing to leverage these platforms to sell directly to consumers.

At Facebook, the social network is now a shopping network

US ecommerce sales are projected to continue double digit growth.