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Walmart is taking a page from Amazon: The retailer looks to diversify its revenue streams by growing its ecommerce, retail media, and services businesses.

Walmart sees growth opportunities regardless of the macroeconomic environment: The retailer looks to boost its international sales, improve its digital presence, and expand its retail media business.

Marketplaces are fighting for the crown in US ecommerce. Though Amazon remains solidly atop ecommerce sales, Walmart and Shopify are attempting to carve into Amazon鈥檚 revenues. Here are the latest updates in ecommerce, advertising, and partnerships from these major players.

Walmart has an unprecedented opportunity to gain ground on Amazon: The big-box retailer is taking advantage of the latter鈥檚 state of disarray to reassert its dominance and take the lead on innovation.

Walmart Connect now offers an ad certification program that helps advertisers understand how the retail media network operates and the types of ad formats it offers.

Faster is better when it comes to ecommerce delivery times: Amazon and Walmart leverage automation, limiting the distance items travel to quickly get online orders to shoppers鈥� doors.

Walmart was the biggest US retailer by US sales in 2022 with nearly $500 billion in sales, more than double the size of runner-up Amazon, according to the National Retail Federation.

Ecommerce success relies on a seamless search strategy. To help consumers find, learn, and buy products more easily, retailers are building out their on-site search capabilities, adding video, incorporating AI, and giving shoppers more tools to find what they are looking for. Here are some of the latest improvements from Walmart, Amazon, and Instacart.

After an underwhelming Q1 performance, revisiting a Walmart partnership would play to its strengths.

Walmart looks to improve its online shopping experience: The retail giant cut down clutter on its revamped website and app to entice shoppers to browse and buy.

US consumers are increasingly turning to Walmart.com, YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok to start their online shopping searches, according to Jungle Scout. Amazon, search engines, and Facebook have lost share since Q1 2022.

Amazon and Walmart build out their delivery infrastructure: Both companies look to boost the speed and efficiency with which they fulfill shoppers鈥� online orders.

The position is a stark contrast to Walmart, Mattel, and others that have warned of price hikes amid the highest average US tariffs since 1934. Zooming out: Bastek鈥檚 comments came as Home Depot reported Q1 results that showed resilience amid stiff macro headwinds and a housing affordability crisis that continues to sideline potential buyers.

Sales growth for cosmetics and beauty will increase at more than twice the rate online than through physical retail channels this year, according to our February 2024 forecast. While ecommerce is stealing market share, its sales only tell a portion of the buying story. Physical stores are still key to discovering beauty products and brands, finding the right shades, and testing formulations鈥攁nd Walmart is making use of its omnichannel footprint to take advantage. Here鈥檚 how.

Walmart to sell Bonobos as digitally native D2C brands lose their luster: WHP Global and Express will acquire the brand for $75 million to shore up the latter鈥檚 business.

Walmart expands in-store retail media opportunities: The big-box retailer is giving advertisers more opportunities to reach physical shoppers with digital screens, audio ads, and sampling.

Amazon and Walmart follow a similar playbook: The retailers use exclusive access to events like Prime Day and Walmart+ Early Access to showcase the value of their membership programs.

Walmart ramps up automation to lower fulfillment costs: The retailer is investing in technology to optimize inventory planning and delivery speed.

With the ascent of Chinese ecommerce disruptors and the ongoing rivalry between Amazon and Walmart, the upcoming holiday season is expected to bring some big shifts. Some of those shifts include the lessening of Cyber Five鈥檚 importance and retailers losing focus on profitability, said our analysts Jeremy Goldman and Zak Stambor on a recent episode of the 鈥淏ehind the Numbers鈥� podcast.

Though growth is slowing, digital grocery will continue to fuel overall ecommerce growth in the US. 鈥淕rowth is no longer driven by new adopters, but heavy digital grocery users,鈥� our analyst Blake Droesch said on a recent 鈥淩eimagining Retail鈥� podcast episode. Here鈥檚 how retailers like Instacart, Amazon, and Walmart can capitalize on frequent buyers.

Walmart is launching its first shoppable video series: The first episodes of the holiday-themed 鈥淎dd to Heart鈥� will be available on Roku, TikTok, and YouTube beginning on Dec. 2.

Amazon is on track for its first-ever $100 billion holiday season, boosted by its unbeatable delivery speeds, while click and collect gives Walmart an omnichannel edge, and Temu draws in price-conscious consumers. Plus, TikTok and mobile apps help retailers connect with consumers and stand out among the competition.

Google said today it is rolling out its Product Studio tool this week, which uses AI to help merchants create and manage product imagery. If that sounds familiar, it鈥檚 because Amazon Ads launched something similar last week. But it鈥檚 not just Amazon and Google that are leaning harder into generative AI. Walmart is incorporating the technology into search to give shoppers more relevant results, while Klarna is using AI-powered video to expand users鈥� time spent with the platform.

On today's episode podcast, in our "Retail Me This, Retail Me That" segment, we discuss why Amazon is struggling to get Amazon Fresh off the ground, what it has going for it, and what would happen if Amazon broke out a separate subscription for grocery. Then for "Pop-Up Rankings," we rank the other players that could offer lessons on how Amazon Fresh could compete with Walmart. Join our analyst Sara Lebow as she hosts analyst Blake Droesch and director of content Becky Schilling.