Repeat buying rose 6.6 points in Q2 as overall rates fell, showing the value of customer relationships beyond big purchases.

Wayfair is concentrating its fall advertising on sports with the “Wayfair Delivers” campaign, anchored by a new TV ad starring quarterback Matthew Stafford and his family. Stafford’s status as an All Star quarterback gives the spot contextual relevance for football fans, while the family setting gives casual sports watchers a relatable hook. Together, the two audiences help Wayfair get the most from its spend.

The retailer is multiplying its sports ad spend to keep home goods top of mind before shoppers are ready to buy.

In August 2026, we analyzed 11,250 ChatGPT responses across 23 retail store categories to compile the AI Visibility Index.

Walmart, Sephora, and other partnerships let users delegate shopping, testing their willingness to hand AI more control.

Online marketplaces are taking a bigger share of ecommerce, but rising shopper expectations, tighter margins, and weaker customer relationships are reshaping the opportunity for brands and retailers.

AI is reshaping contextual advertising across CTV, audio, retail media, and the open web. It’s advancing semantic understanding, agentic planning, and real-time targeting while exposing persistent measurement and infrastructure gaps.

Brand breadth, loyalty, and physical stores are helping it take share in a soft market.

LA pop-up shows home goods retailers need more than AR to persuade shoppers to buy.

This FAQ covers what agentic commerce is, who the key players are, and what brands and advertisers should do about it.

As ecommerce gains concentrate among a few dominant players, smaller retailers have an opening if they can carve out share in an increasingly uneven market.

Pinterest shifts to yield; its leadership change reinforces focus on performance, commerce, and higher ARPU.

Stripe launched its Agentic Commerce Suite, enabling affiliated merchants to service agentic checkout, per a press release. Merchants will be able to upload their inventories to databases that are scannable by AI agents without updating their own tech stack. Gen Z and millennials shoppers are becoming more comfortable using AI agents to shop for discretionary and essential shopping hauls. Merchants that make it easy for consumers to transfer repeat purchases to programmable agentic purchases stand to score great volume opportunities as shoppers look for a low-touch restock experience.

Q3 consumer spending looked steady, but the gains were fueled mainly by higher-income shoppers, revealing a split landscape that bolstered value and essentials retailers while squeezing brands dependent on discretionary and big-ticket projects.

The US housing market remains frozen as affordability challenges, elevated rates, and tariffs choke activity, leaving prices nearly flat YoY and 75% of top markets overvalued. The slowdown has hurt major home-improvement chains—Home Depot and Lowe’s both trimmed guidance as big-ticket projects and financed spending weaken. Yet higher-end and digitally savvy retailers like Wayfair and Williams-Sonoma have held up better, with AI-driven personalization and affluent customer bases helping offset broader softness. The split underscores a K-shaped retail economy unlikely to rebalance until affordability and buyer confidence improve.

AppLovin’s launch of Axon marks its transformation from mobile gaming to full-scale AI ad platform — and one of ad tech’s boldest pivots yet. The new Axon Ads Manager promises real-time AI bidding, Shopify integrations, and transparent attribution as the company positions itself as a performance-driven alternative to Meta and Google. The rollout comes as the SEC investigates AppLovin’s data practices, spotlighting the tension between AI-powered innovation and compliance. Marketers see opportunity — regulators see risk.

Ikea’s parent company Ingka Group is acquiring US logistics tech firm Locus to strengthen its ecommerce operations and speed up deliveries. Locus’ AI-driven tools will optimize route planning, real-time tracking, and resource use, potentially saving Ikea around €100 million annually. The deal reflects Ikea’s push to improve digital experiences and compete with online retailers like Wayfair as ecommerce rises to 28% of sales. Combined with its smaller urban stores and new retail partnerships, the investment underscores Ikea’s strategy to create a more flexible, customer-focused model for long-term growth in the US market.