The number of US homes changing hands is incredibly low: That poses a challenge to housing-related retailers like Wayfair.

Retailers faced no shortage of challenges in the first half of the year as elevated interest rates, the lingering effects of inflation, and a loosening labor market weighed on consumer spending. In this report, we’ll contextualize our coverage of retailers’ Q2 revenues across four key verticals: department stores, home, mass merchants, and off-price.

As the share of US ecommerce sales on marketplaces continues to expand, our latest survey examines consumer buying habits and expectations across leading platforms.

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 Arielle Feger and Sara Lebow will defend their list against analysts Sky Canaves and Zak Stambor, who will dispute the power rankings by attempting to move retailers up, down, on, or off the list.

US retail marketplace ecommerce sales will grow 11.4% to reach $428.30 billion this year, per our forecast. Because Amazon (73.4%) and eBay (8.2%) will rake in the majority of those sales, smaller marketplaces like Shein, Michaels, and Wayfair are getting creative and taking the battle for sales in-store.

Amazon announces Big Spring Sale as consumers show signs of spending fatigue: The retailer is counting on the event to jolt sales and give its ad business an edge over Meta and Google.

Calendar context: With the invention of Prime Day, Amazon created an industrywide retail holiday consumers can now count on in the summer each year. Last year, Amazon also launched its Prime Early Access Sale in October. “We now have three key tentpoles,” said our analyst Andrew Lipsman on “Behind the Numbers: Reimagining Retail,” referring to Prime Day, the Prime Early Access Sale, and Black Friday. But spring remains untapped. “A question I get is, ‘Is Amazon going to do more of these?’ And I think the answer is yes, eventually,” said Lipsman.

TikTok and Meta continue to diverge on social commerce strategies, Pinterest teams up with Wayfair on a data clean room test, and YouTube introduces unskippable ads.

Smaller retailers are gaining share and reshaping the ecommerce landscape, but will they be able compete with giants like Amazon?

Despite the word “recession” hanging in the air, US retailers had an okay Q4 in 2022. But some recurring themes persisted: Shoppers pulled back on discretionary spending, opted against home renovations, and generally avoided high prices. Here’s a look at how those trends affected earnings.

People aren’t moving as much as they used to: That poses a challenge to home improvement retailers like Lowe’s and Home Depot, as well as retailers that sell home-related items.

“It’s really hard when people don’t know what it is that you stand for. Then you ultimately stand for nothing, and that’s when your sales suffer,” our analyst Zak Stambor said on our “Behind the Numbers: Reimagining Retail” podcast.

This report is a guideline to help marketers understand retail media through market size estimates, growth projections, and analysis of the complex landscape of buyers, sellers, and intermediaries.

We expect retail sales growth to slow to 2.9% this year: That pullback in spending is leading retailers to cut staff to protect their bottom lines.

Thousands of Googlers get pink slips: As scavenging continues to rise among other industries, terminated workers shouldn’t be jobless for long. Meanwhile, Google is laser-focused on a revenue-driven AI strategy.

Which retailers and brands will win (or lose) in 2023? Retailers that can offer value—either in terms of price or convenience—will continue to thrive, while those that cater to an increasingly squeezed middle class will struggle.

NBCU announces Currency Council: The future of measurement is multicurrency—and the media giant continues to take a leadership role.

Better-than-expected earnings for Etsy and eBay give retailers a glimmer of hope: But continued losses for Wayfair and Peloton show some categories have a longer, difficult road to recovery.