蘑菇AV

Walmart is preparing for slower sales and profit growth, though CFO John David Rainey acknowledged the company didn鈥檛 factor tariffs directly into its guidance, saying, 鈥淲e don鈥檛 want to get out over our skis.鈥�. Best Buy is bracing for potential price hikes due to tariffs on China and Mexico, with CFO Matt Bilunas calling consumer reaction the 鈥済iant wild card.鈥�

GenAI is on the agenda for most retailers in 2024: Walmart, Target, Canadian Tire, and others are turning to the tech to boost customer and employee satisfaction.

It鈥檚 getting hard to ignore the organized retail theft problem: Home Depot, Walmart, and Target are among the retailers ringing alarm bells about the growing crime issue.

Several retailers look to harness generative AI鈥檚 potential: Instacart, Walmart, and Levi Strauss are among those testing potential use cases for the emerging technology.

This year, furniture and home furnishings will make up a $179.75 billion ecommerce market in the US, according to our forecast, and growth is accelerating. With challenges coming from big names like Amazon and Walmart and resale platforms like Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist, Ikea has no choice but to innovate to keep up.

Social media and TV are the top channels that consumer packaged goods (CPG) consumers use to find new products, but in-store still plays an important role in product discovery. Meanwhile, Amazon and Walmart are fighting to capture share of CPG product searches, though in-store consumers are more likely to turn to Google for help.

Amazon Fresh, despite failing to gain traction with its brick-and-mortar endeavors, is trying to assert itself in the grocery space. Its customer base, though much smaller than competitors like Walmart and Target, is attractive to consumer packaged goods (CPG) advertisers because those shoppers are open to trying new products.

Clinique is the latest prestige beauty brand to make the leap to Amazon: The partnership signals the retailer鈥檚 growing clout. It鈥檚 set to overtake Walmart as the US鈥� top beauty retailer by 2025.

Value is top of mind for grocery-shopping consumers: Aldi, Dollar General, Grocery Outlet, and Walmart will open more stores to attract cost-conscious shoppers.

Recently, both Walmart and Target have warned that consumers鈥� cautious spending habits may lead to a sluggish holiday season this year. Were they right to be worried? Here鈥檚 how the holiday shopping season is going so far.

Large retailers are in a prime position for the final holiday push: Amazon, Target, and Walmart are poised to leverage their infrastructures to capture an outsize share of spend and retail media dollars.

Measuring creator marketing is tough. Affiliate links provide direct attribution, but many sales occur after consumers see creator content. Even MrBeast, the biggest individual creator on YouTube, sells his Feastables bars at retailers like Walmart, not just on social media. So how can advertisers using creator marketing measure the efficacy of creator campaigns?

The 15 biggest US ecommerce players aren鈥檛 a surprise (here鈥檚 looking at you, Amazon, Walmart, and Apple). User-friendly mobile apps, quick delivery, innovation, and converting sales are what turn retailers into ecommerce powerhouses. Here are the companies our analysts believe best exemplify those features within the 15 largest ecommerce players.

On today's episode, we discuss what to make of Twitter changing its name to X, whether Walmart is crushing Amazon in the grocery wars, what a billboard in your living room would look like, what Gen Z has done to the purchase funnel, why Airbnb doesn't have a loyalty program, what the most popular museums around the world are, and more. Tune in to the discussion with our vice president of content Suzy Davidkhanian and analysts Blake Droesch and Carina Perkins.

On today's podcast episode, we discuss how Walmart plans to use AI to enhance the customer shopping experience, Instacart pushing smart carts into in-store retail media, why consumers are dissatisfied with their in-store shopping experience, how best to reduce clothing returns, the rise鈥攁nd potential fall鈥攐f the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and more. Tune in to the discussion with our vice president of content Suzy Davidkhanian and analysts Blake Droesch and Carina Perkins.

Pride products are plentiful this year: Walmart, JCPenney, Kohl鈥檚, and Abercrombie push past the right-wing backlash to offer Pride-related products.

Consumer spending patterns shifted in 2023: Retailers like Walmart, TJ Maxx, and E.l.f Beauty benefited from consumers growing cost consciousness.

Moving the event earlier in July鈥攕hortly after Independence Day鈥攃ould also give Amazon a head start on competing summer sales from Walmart, Target, and others. The challenge: Steep tariffs on imports from China and other markets are weighing on sellers鈥� margins, forcing many to rethink their Prime Day strategies. Some are scaling back discounts, while others are opting out of the event entirely.

These platforms aren't just competing with each other鈥攖hey鈥檙e going up against established discount chains, US-based brands leaning into reshoring, and retail giants like Amazon and Walmart that already command the value shopper鈥檚 loyalty. In a crowded, cost-conscious ecommerce landscape, staying relevant won鈥檛 be easy.

The four-day event could also help the retailer counter the likes of Walmart, Target, and TikTok Shop, which have been holding competing sales in the lead-up to Prime Day in an effort to steal shoppers away.

While every retailer can鈥檛 match the scale of Walmart or Amazon, there鈥檚 still plenty of opportunities for them to succeed. 鈥淵ou can鈥檛 take the big guys鈥� playbook and just copy and paste it to your business,鈥� said McGahee, advising smaller networks to lean into their unique assets鈥攍ike in-store availability鈥攁nd focus on outperforming competitors with stronger incrementality and merchandising results.

Costco shoppers are spending more on groceries than food away from home, CFO Gary Millerchip said鈥攁 trend that explains why Walmart and other grocers are doubling down on prepared foods and foodservice partnerships.

That鈥檚 not as easy as it sounds, because Walmart, Costco, and Amazon are some of the largest mass merchants in Canada. Many retailers have included 鈥淏uy Canadian鈥� signage in product aisles, flagging domestic goods. Loblaw has included symbols denoting products with prices affected by tariffs.

Amazon and Walmart combined will gobble up more than 84% of all retail media ad spending in 2025, representing a pervasive and unyielding dominance within the channel. The share of ad spending allocated to all other RMNs increased by less than 1 percentage point between 2019 and 2024.