Retail & Ecommerce

Why retailers may want to double-check customers’ debit cards

The worldwide ecommerce boom of 2020, driven by social distancing measures made necessary during the pandemic, has helped Shopify become the most valuable company in Canada—and by a wide margin. It first achieved this milestone in May 2020, surpassing the Royal Bank of Canada, the country’s biggest bank. The ecommerce software company’s market cap reached a peak of more than $180 billion just ahead of reporting Q4 2020 earnings in mid-February this year.

Brand advertising can offer higher ROI for some verticals: According to new research from Facebook, ecommerce and retail verticals may find upper-funnel ads more cost-effective than direct-response advertising—so, some marketers may need to reevaluate their strategies.

Etsy more than doubles sales in 2020: Overall ecommerce sales skyrocketed during the pandemic, but that's not the whole story—much of Etsy's success comes from its focus on small businesses, which will help it keep growing strongly even after the pandemic.

Ecommerce supply chain issues—from out-of-stock products to delayed deliveries—have been at the forefront of consumers’ minds since the beginning of the pandemic. Well before the 2020 holiday season, concerns mounted about “shipageddon,” a potential event in which the supply chain wouldn’t be able to adequately meet significantly elevated ecommerce demand between Thanksgiving and Christmas.