August retail sales data points to consumers’ continued resilience: While spending is healthy, shoppers remain deal-focused as they look ahead to the holiday season.
The quick-commerce space isn’t totally dead: German startup Flink raised $150 million at a nearly $1 billion valuation, as the company finds success in staying local and partnering with food delivery platform Just Eat Takeaway.
“The holiday season really starts October 1,” Megan Gaffey, senior director of publisher partnerships at Rakuten Advertising, said on our Tech-Talk webinar Performance Marketing Playbook for Q4 Holiday Success. “And you see a lot of advertisers launch Black Friday promotions the Tuesday before Thanksgiving to get ahead of the noise.”
25% of US consumers will avoid traveling to cut back and save during the holiday season, according to an August 2024 survey by Censuswide and Invoice Home.
Sophisticated shoppers have long been the lifeblood of the affiliate marketing industry. But as affiliate marketing has grown more visible, many of those shoppers have gotten choosier about the kinds of deals they take, squeezing the margins of both advertisers and publishers.
“In 2022, retail media hit the first of many milestones when it became the fastest US ad channel to eclipse $30 billion in spending—nearly twice as quickly as it took social media,” our analyst Max Willens said on a recent Meet the Analyst webinar. “That was just the start.”
Last week, retail marketplaces Thrive Market and Faire joined the growing number of retail media.
Western companies lose confidence in China as consumer spending softens: Weaker-than-expected August retail sales are just the latest data point to push retailers to reevaluate their investments.
In Q2 2024, worldwide clickthrough rates (CTRs) for search was 1.63%, more than double that of social (0.66%) and quadruple that of retail media (0.39%), according to a July 2024 report by Skai.
On today's podcast episode, we discuss whether Facebook actually has a young person problem, what will be the most popular kinds of interactive ads, if Amazon’s ‘Just Walk Out’ cashierless technology has found a new home, can a ‘Spotify for news’ like service work, where Americans are moving too in the country, and more. Tune into the discussion with analysts Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf and Max Willens, and vice president of Briefings Stephanie Taglianetti.
Major retailers like IKEA, Walmart, and ThredUp are launching peer-to-peer resale marketplaces, aiming to capture a slice of the booming secondhand market. This trend comes as US marketplace ecommerce sales are projected to surpass $500 billion next year, according to our forecast.
The digital wallet’s rollout has been slow, but we expect strong uptake in 2025 thanks to its innovative features and bank integrations
This should help boost volume for both the booking platform and for the card-linked installment offering, given BNPL’s popularity in the travel category and an overall spike in popularity for card-linked BNPL
Both Mastercard and Visa are spending big on fraud protection as threats pile up
It isn’t just Shein and Temu that exploit the de minimis loophole: The Biden administration’s crackdown on the trade provision could significantly reduce the number of parcels entering under the exemption.
Ahold Delhaize sees big retail media opportunities in its stores: There’s good reason for that outlook since we expect 87% of grocery sales to occur offline this year.
Nearly 1 in 4 grocery dollars will go to private labels by 2030: Store brands are gaining popularity as shoppers seek value and CPGs cut back on innovation.
Amazon, Flipkart violated India’s antitrust laws, regulators say: The two allegedly gave select sellers preferential treatment and used discounts to undercut smaller merchants.
It urges stricter rules to protect minors from overspending in games like Fortnite and Minecraft.
Inclusive brands, exclusive growth: Beauty companies that champion inclusion unlock new customer segments and drive higher sales, a Circana and SeeMee Index study shows.