On today’s podcast episode, we discuss how retailers are approaching their DEI initiatives under the current administration, the impact of staying quiet this Pride Month, and where the discussion around DEI goes next. Listen to the conversation with our Senior Analyst Sara Lebow as she hosts Principal Analyst Sky Canaves, Analyst Paola Flores-Marquez, and Dr. Marcus Collins—author and Professor of Marketing at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan.

The news: Global Payments rolled out a retail point-of-sale (POS) system under its Genius platform targeting small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). Our take: Despite that clout, as other merchant service providers also diversify their offerings through verticalized software, hardware, and partnership integrations, Global Payments’ Genius will enter a crowded POS space with its offerings nearly indistinguishable from Stripe’s, Square’s, or Toast’s hardware and software lineups.

On today’s podcast episode, we check in on how retailers’ financials are looking this year, different approaches to inventory, and what Q2 is telling us. Listen to the conversation with our Senior Analyst Sara Lebow as she hosts Senior Analysts Blake Droesch and Zak Stambor.

Retail media will reach $60.81 billion in 2025—adding more new dollars than Meta and Alphabet combined—and brands now rank incrementality as a top KPI. In this interview, Tinuiti’s Elizabeth Marsten lays out how to prove incremental sales, pick smarter tools, and keep measurement future-ready.

On this special edition podcast episode, learn about the rise of off-site retail media advertising with EMARKETER Principal Analyst, Sarah Marzano and Google’s Head of Retail Media, Shawn McGahee. This conversation is from the May 9th EMARKETER virtual summit, Commerce Media Trends 2025. Listen everywhere you find podcasts, or watch on YouTube and Spotify.

On today's podcast episode, we discuss the unofficial list of the most interesting retailers for the month of May. 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 Analysts Arielle Feger and 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.

On today’s podcast episode, we discuss the potential of Amazon’s new Buy for Me feature, which of its new CTV ads will make the biggest impact, and how much tariffs might slow down the online shopping giant. Join Senior Director of Podcasts and host Marcus Johnson, Senior Director of Briefings Jeremy Goldman, and Analyst Rachel Wolff. Listen everywhere and watch on YouTube and Spotify.

Retail ecommerce sales worldwide will reach $6.419 trillion in 2025, growing 6.8% YoY—the slowest pace since 2022, per our February 2025 forecast.

US social ad spend will grow YoY in 2025, even as platforms grapple with tariff-related budget cuts from industries that spend heavily on social channels, like CPG and retail.

"Retail media could have a key role to continue driving growth for advertisers which sell products through retail," said Jonathan Fasano, business development director at Walmart Connect Mexico and Central America, during a recent EMARKETER Summit on commerce media.

The global payments industry will be a $2.3 trillion revenue opportunity in 2028. But shifting business models, new technologies, and alternative payment methods are changing how key card players compete for a share of this revenue.

On today’s podcast episode, we discuss where GenAI is being used along the current shopper journey, how agents can help, the most overhyped piece of this, and one thing retailers and brands are paying enough attention to as a result. Listen to the conversation with our Senior Analyst Sara Lebow as she hosts Senior Analyst Carina Perkins and Principal Analyst Yory Wurmser.

The partnership highlights the importance of individual merchant deals and larger platform tie-ups

Commerce media is expanding in terms of numbers of players, but ad spend patterns remain the same.

“Shopper journeys are very complex, and retail media networks (RMNs) need scale to reach those shoppers, wherever they may be,” said Shawn McGahee, head of retail media at Google, during last week’s EMARKETER Summit on commerce media.