Retail & Ecommerce

A pioneer in smart card technology, France was the first country worldwide to introduce chip-and-PIN payment cards. Now, contactless cards are also widely available, but that has held back adoption of mobile payment alternatives.

Despite healthy consumer spending overall in 2019, the upcoming holiday season will be affected by economic uncertainty and a shorter timeframe. (This year has six fewer days between Thanksgiving and Christmas than in 2018.)

Peer-to-peer (P2P) payments are increasing significantly in the US, driven by tremendous growth from Venmo and Zelle. eMarketer’s latest estimates show that P2P mobile transactions will total $309.95 billion this year, growing 27.9% to hit $396.48 billion in 2020.

As some traditional brands and retailers flounder, a host of direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands have risen to capture US shoppers’ imagination—and an increasing share of their wallets. Many of these challenger brands haven’t yet leaned into holiday marketing like their established counterparts. But with continued business momentum, the ability to make marketing investments and expanded physical presences, this year should see additional emphasis.

eMarketer vice president of forecasting Monica Peart guest-hosts a discussion on the 2019 holiday shopping season, featuring principal analyst Andrew Lipsman, senior forecasting analyst Cindy Liu and forecasting analyst Vincent Yip.

eMarketer vice president of forecasting Monica Peart walks through our latest ad spend numbers for Google, Facebook and Amazon.

In a record year for US retail store closures, dollar stores are thriving. Not only are major players opening a significant number of new locations, but more consumers are regularly shopping for groceries at dollar stores than any other time in the past five years. But dollar stores, which have been praised as survivors of the ongoing retail apocalypse, could face new pressure from Amazon come 2020.

Apple Pay’s dominance and increasing store adoption of mobile proximity payment technology is driving growth in transaction volume in the US, new eMarketer estimates show. This year, we estimate that mobile proximity payment transactions will total $98.88 billion this year, growing another 31.8% to $130.36 billion next year.

If Amazon is poised to gain share in the first half of the final week before Christmas, click-and-collect orders will tip the scales in the direction of big-box merchants during the second half of that week.

Consumers’ desire for affordability and convenience has bolstered demand for online grocery. And as heavy hitters continue to roll out offerings—like Walmart's buy online pick up in-store (BOPUS) and "InHome Delivery" options, as well as Amazon's "Key for Garage" and same-day shipping—their respective double-digit growth speaks for itself.

For the first time, a generic mobile payment app is more popular than the Starbucks mobile app, which had long led the category despite being specific to one retailer. Apple Pay became the market leader last year, when 27.7 million Americans used the app to make a purchase.

This year, consumers will have six fewer days to shop this holiday between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Even more surprisingly, only one in three are aware of the impending calendar crunch, according to July 2019 data from RetailMeNot.

Traditionally, organizations haven’t viewed the customer experience as a singular thing owned by one particular person or department. That’s changed, as brands have worked to put customers at the forefront—and it’s given modern CMOs new importance as owners of that experience.

Marketers believe they have a mandate to personalize customer experiences across channels. That’s because most believe consumers have signaled their interest in receiving more-tailored communications through their behaviors and actions. And in many cases, personalization seems to be the logical next step in achieving the greatest return on marketing investments in a digital, measurable world.

When CMO Ryan Dell joined MVMT in 2016, the fashion brand was primarily a direct-to-consumer (D2C) watch seller with little retail presence. After establishing the brand—largely through building a strong following on social media—MVMT caught the attention of watch giant Movado Group, which acquired the company last year.

eMarketer principal analyst Andrew Lipsman, executive editor Rimma Kats, senior corporate account director Sarai Bravo and senior director of global accounts Anne Porto discuss Banana Republic’s new clothing rental service: Why do consumers use them? What are the pain points? And can they have mass market appeal? Then, Andrew and Rimma chat about video platforms streaming fashion shows, why Away wants to be a travel company and more.