Retail & Ecommerce

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.

Capital One will take over BJ’s portfolio from ADS, and JPMorgan will work with Instacart on a credit card program.

Wayfair will open physical stores for its brands starting this year: The offline push follows a path well paved by other digitally native brands.

Bitcoin is losing ground in the payments realm as stablecoins solve key crypto pain points, which could move the needle for crypto adoption.

Lunar’s Thought Machine deal will help bring it toe-to-toe with rivals: The core-banking provider’s cloud-based offering will support Lunar’s product lineup and future market expansions which need to keep pace with other European challengers.

On the third episode of this brand new Behind the Numbers show, Reimagining Retail, co-hosts and eMarketer principal analysts at Insider Intelligence Suzy Davidkhanian and Andrew Lipsman discuss the rise of sustainability in retail and share a ranking of their top five under-the-radar retail stories for 2022. Plus, a bonus discussion of a couple of overhyped retail trends.

Shopify works with ecommerce giant JD.com to help its merchants sell in China: The deal marks a major push into China for Shopify and broadens JD.com’s international reach.

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.

China’s grocery ecommerce sales were expected to grow 24.6% in 2021 and reach $198.70 billion (RMB 1.36 trillion).

Visa Acceptance Cloud, which lets payment service providers embed transaction software into digital devices, opens new acceptance channels for Visa.