Retail & Ecommerce

Mainland China will soon become the world’s biggest luxury market: As consumption slows and retail sales decline, luxury brands turn to ecommerce to reach China’s shoppers.

Candid announced plans to pull out of the direct-to-consumer space, shifting to B2B: The move by the oral care brand illustrates that D2C is not an automatic winner across all categories.

Amazon Go expansion means more grocery data for the ecommerce giant: As Amazon brings its cashierless stores to the suburbs, it also brings its data collection practices.

Why Amazon keeps experimenting with physical stores: While offline sales represent a tiny fraction of its overall sales, Amazon has plenty to gain by venturing into the real world.

The consumer protection watchdog is looking into the major players’ business practices and their effects on consumer credit access.

Of the small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in the US that accept cryptocurrency, 93% take payments in Bitcoin, making it the most commonly accepted crypto.

Direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands face significant challenges in 2022: A survey by Diffusion highlights changes in consumer priorities amid supply chain snafus.

Retail ventures into the metaverse: Sentiment at annual industry show suggests the metaverse may already be too big to fail.

Google hired former PayPal exec Arnold Goldberg to lead its payments division following last year’s struggles with employee turnover within payments.

On today's episode, we discuss the most important trends shaping the future of shopping, whether gifting experiences can catch up with physical goods, the best return policies, the "empty promise" of instant delivery, Taco Bell's subscription service, an unpopular opinion about Netflix prices, who invented Monopoly, and more. Tune in to the discussion with eMarketer principal analyst Suzy Davidkhanian, director of forecasting Oscar Orozco, and director of reports editing at Insider Intelligence Rahul Chadha.

Insider Intelligence spoke with Lindsay McCormick, founder and CEO of Bite, a direct-to-consumer (D2C) brand founded to help consumers decrease plastic use in their personal care routines, starting with a plastic-free toothpaste before expanding into other products like deodorant.

The majority of US social buyers still order from retailer websites, rather than directly on social platforms. In December, 61.5% said they made their most recent social commerce purchase on the retailer’s site, while 38.5% reported doing so through the social network’s checkout feature.