蘑菇AV

Understanding the nuances of how and where Mexico鈥檚 67.5 million digital buyers spend their money online is key for brands and retailers to succeed in this thriving ecommerce market.鈥�

So Temu is going to be piloting paid search ads for its marketplace. It's also going to start an app at marketplace with inventory, logistics, management and other tools. I think it's a big deal considering how the competition that Temu has already given Amazon, adding an ad component, I think just kind of really adds fuel to that fire.

This deck provides an in-depth analysis of the home furnishings sector in ecommerce, including forecasts for sales growth, digital ad spending, and KPIs. It also highlights consumer shopping behaviors, spending trends, and the growing influence of social media.

Tariffs on imported goods, particularly from China, could squeeze margins for marketplace sellers and force price increases, suppressing ad spend. If sellers cannot pass on these extra costs or face inventory disruptions, they may cut back retail media investments to protect profitability. However, retail media is still in high-growth mode, giving it a larger cushion to absorb even a major downshift.

While Google has taken steps to crack down on fake reviews, stricter oversight from the CMA and a recent ban on such activity from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) could force it鈥� as well as Amazon, Walmart, and any online marketplace鈥攖o impose stricter safeguards to keep such fraudulent activity to a minimum.

Leverage regional marketplaces to expand reach. Selling through platforms like Mercado Libre can help brands establish a stronger foothold in Latin America and identify which high-growth markets to target. Reinforce brand value to retain customers. Highlight key differentiators to prevent loyal and price-sensitive consumers from trading down to lower-cost alternatives.

The battle for ad dollars is shifting from online marketplaces to streaming and in-store environments. Amazon鈥檚 integration of ads into Prime Video represents a major expansion of its retail media empire. Walmart鈥檚 Vizio acquisition mirrors this strategy, as it seeks to turn SmartCast OS into a retail media network that extends beyond its website and stores.

It has also launched Premium Beauty on its fast-growing third-party ecommerce marketplace. Target鈥檚 partnership with Ulta Beauty to put shop-in-shops in hundreds of stores across the country has yielded positive results. In Q3 2024, the retailer reported beauty category sales growth of more than 6%鈥攁lthough Target鈥檚 comparable sales were essentially flat at 0.3% YoY.

Regulators are pushing back on its tweaks to search and app store policies, calling them insufficient. It will have to significantly alter its models to stay in the region.

The once-siloed mobile ad marketplaces are converging thanks to AI-infused ad targeting and measurement. Mobile advertising used to be several different markets divided by platform, buying method, format, and media. Mobile web ads, for example, resembled desktop ads more than in-app ads.

Amazon late last year launched its own low-cost marketplace, Haul, where products retail for $20 or less. It also cut its commissions in some key categories. At the same time, Amazon is on a relentless push to lean into its Prime advantage鈥攆ast delivery times鈥攖o keep shoppers clicking the buy button.

However, 35% of organizations say marketplace adoption could be slowed down by real-world consequences from genAI mistakes, and 29% say potential loss of trust due to biases and inaccuracies is the top risk to mass adoption.

鈥淲ith OOH, you can leverage the same targeting tactics and measurement insights [as on-site], though noting that measurement won鈥檛 be exactly apples to apples,鈥� said Lucy Markowitz, senior vice president and general manager of US marketplace at Vistar Media. AI and automation fuel the more distant future of retail media.

As their strategies converge around developing robust third-party marketplaces, competition in the sector will heat up. A closer look at retail and ecommerce trends. New patterns are emerging in category growth. The top categories will diverge in overall retail and ecommerce.

Use case鈥攅ZCater: An online marketplace for restaurants and caterers, eZCater uses its AI agents to streamline operations for complex tasks, including modifying orders and updating customers鈥� dietary restrictions, providing venue recommendations, and handling routine tasks and customer service.

User growth is coming from Gen Alpha and Gen Z, who primarily use Facebook for its Marketplace feature. Meta鈥檚 current attempts to make Facebook 鈥渃ool鈥� again could curb more severe declines down the line, though it鈥檚 too early to tell. YouTube CTV viewers will surpass Facebook users by 2027. That year, the former will reach 183.4 million while the latter will have 181.3 million, per our estimates.

While there have been some gains in mitigating the MFA problem, AI鈥檚 output has made it difficult for publishers and ad marketplaces to keep up. Reports from Pixalate over the last several quarters found that MFA sites captured 11% of open web programmatic ad dollars in Q3 2024, 13% in Q2, and 10% in Q1, representing a multibillion-dollar problem.

With regulators quick to seize on Shein鈥檚 and Temu鈥檚 every misstep, the two will have to invest resources to police their marketplaces more effectively, which could limit growth. Looking ahead: Going forward, Chinese ecommerce platforms face a much more difficult path to growth.

Long-term results and immediate conversions shouldn鈥檛 be siloed, said Lucy Markowitz, senior vice president and general manager of US Marketplace at Vistar Media, who emphasized the value of the right data and audience targeting in yielding creative results.

Aside from Google鈥檚 Gemini, other genAI-first platforms came in dead last in adoption compared with search options across traditional search engines, social networks, and retail marketplaces. Advertisers may overestimate the influence of genAI search because they use it more than the average consumer.

Both marketplaces have considerable customer overlap with TikTok and sell the kinds of cheap, trendy items that resonate with the social commerce platform鈥檚 users. While TikTok Shop has been the primary driver of live shopping adoption in the US, some of that spending could shift to livestreaming companies like Whatnot, which sold more than $3 billion worth of goods last year.

Walmart鈥檚 US ecommerce business jumped 22% YoY, buoyed by the growing selection of products and brands on its marketplace and its investments in faster delivery. That鈥檚 helping it win over higher-income shoppers who are willing to pay for convenience: More than 30% of orders in Q3 came from customers who paid a fee to receive deliveries within one or three hours.

This is the first installment of our 鈥淩etail and Ecommerce Sales Benchmarks鈥� series, which helps retailers calibrate their sales mix against the market.