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.

Home goods retailers feel the ripple effects of the housing recession: As the housing market slows, so does consumer spending on home-related items such as appliances and furniture.

Pinterest wants to be more than just shopping inspiration: The platform’s evolution into a full-funnel commerce app has caught the interest of activist investor Elliott Management.

Retailers experiment with the role of the store: Gap, Jonathan Adler, and others are testing new retail concepts and tech to determine the best way to leverage their physical presences.

How should businesses view these global trends and events? How are behaviors and spending changing? In this report, Insider Intelligence analysts weigh in on the questions they’re being asked by both clients and the media about the shifting landscape in key areas like digital advertising, retail and ecommerce, and financial services.

US retail sales growth will stabilize in 2022, but changes wrought by two years of the pandemic will drive growth in online automotive and grocery sales.

Here’s how ad buyers ranked the retail media networks of 11 major retailers—Amazon, Best Buy, Costco Wholesale, eBay, The Home Depot, Instacart, Kroger, Macy’s, Target, Walmart, and Wayfair—according to the attributes they value most.

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.