The 2021 holiday season saw the highest retail growth in 20 years, setting the stage for a solid 2022 holiday season.

Walmart Inc.’s earnings show the benefit of prioritizing value over profits: The company’s decision to keep prices low helped it maintain growth and gain market share.

Food and grocery delivery has spiked during the pandemic. Apps like SkipTheDishes, Uber Eats, and Instacart have gained new users who turned to delivery out of necessity. For marketers, these apps present a new opportunity to reach consumers with ad products rich in intent and location data.

Amazon Fresh is on a rapid growth curve: Grocery is a key element within Amazon’s offline push.

Price increases hit retailers and consumers hard: As inflation approaches historic highs, retailers have to decide how much of the cost can be passed on without alienating their customer base.

The Great Resignation is having a significant impact on retail: Retailers are feeling pressure to boost pay and benefits for both corporate workers and store employees.

Payments Ecosystem: Diminishing analog payment use—as well as the battle for share between entrenched electronic payment methods and emerging challengers—will intensify the battle for customer spending this year.

Payments Ecosystem: POS hardware, POS software, and gateway providers are working to become one-stop shops for merchants. Offering simple, robust access to front- and back-end solutions across industries lets them better serve merchants demanding integrated solutions.

On this episode of our new Behind the Numbers show, Reimagining Retail, our analyst Andrew Lipsman hosts Russ Dieringer, founder of Stratably, to discuss intrigue in the executive ranks at key retail media platforms Amazon, Walmart, and Instacart. They also rank their top four retail media trends for 2022.

Buyer's remorse intensified in 2021 as ecommerce adoption rose: High return rates are cutting into retailers’ margins and increasing inventory pressure.

Its fintech is out of stealth mode and is making acquisitions to build a neobank that will call itself as ONE. Its scaling potential makes it a threat to US banking players.

Walmart, Target, and Best Buy executives look ahead: Their comments at a retail industry conference offer insight into where and how they expect consumers to shop.

Instacart’s delivery ambitions extend beyond grocery: Ahead of a potential IPO, the grocery delivery giant expands its product offerings to include prepared food delivery.

Retail media advertising had a banner year in 2021—one that will be hard to top. Although growth is expected to taper this year, there are several reasons why retailers looking to build their own media networks should take notice.

By 2024, we expect US digital ad spend to be about $65 billion higher than what we expected before the pandemic. The biggest drivers behind these larger-than-expected increases are retail media networks and connected TV.

Omicron outbreak leads retailers to cut hours and temporarily close stores: The situation could drive more consumers to buy online and spur merchants to add more self-service tools.

Rounding up news from the last days of 2021: The news cycle didn’t stop over the holidays. These are some of the most notable stories from the last two weeks.

Brands eagerly jump on the retail media network bandwagon: As access to customer data becomes a priority for brands, retailers see an opportunity to diversify their revenue streams.

Walmart is the most popular online alternative to Amazon, with nearly 63% of US Amazon buyers picking up products there when not doing so on Amazon.

We expect retail media advertising to be one of the fastest-growing segments of digital advertising in the US at over 31%. But this is just one of the five key trends that we predict will most shape the retail landscape in the year ahead.