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The road map ahead: To attract new customers, Kohl鈥檚 leaned into partnerships with Sephora, Amazon, and Babies R Us, relaunched the tween apparel brand Limited Too, and expanded its assortment of branded apparel.

Infinite Reality鈥檚 latest move suggests the metaverse isn鈥檛 done just yet: The company is buying virtual shopping platform Obsess in a move aimed at reimagining how brands connect with consumers online.

During Prime Day 2024, US shoppers will spend nearly $14 billion鈥攁 5.9% increase over last year. But the dynamics of the shopping event are shifting as competitors chip away at Amazon鈥檚 market share.

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.

Follow us on Instagram. Episode Transcript:. Sara Lebow (00:01):. Hello, listeners. Today is Wednesday, January 22nd. Welcome to Behind the Numbers Reimagining Retail, an eMarketer podcast. This is the show where we talk about how retail collides with every part of our lives. I'm your host, Sara Lebow.

Not its first rodeo: Best Buy aims to learn from its experience operating an online marketplace in the US from 2011 to 2016, as well as its marketplace in Canada. The retailer鈥檚 previous marketplace only drove about 1% of domestic revenues and led to confusion among consumers who bought items from third-party sellers then tried to return that merchandise to the retailer鈥檚 stores.

Cracker Barrel led all US flowers, gifts, and greetings retailers with 5.8 million unique visitors in November 2024, according to Comscore.

We expect Temu鈥檚 US marketplace sales to grow 59% this year to $30.83 billion, nearly three times the size of Walmart鈥檚 third-party marketplace鈥攁lthough it should be noted our forecast excludes the impact of potential tariffs.

Worldwide ecommerce sales growth has declined to all-time lows, and digital ad spending growth has followed in its tracks. What can we learn from existing trends and the long-term outlook for these two key metrics?

By investing in faster, more efficient delivery; expanding the array of products and brands on its marketplace, particularly on the premium end; and staying current with Gen Z customers, Walmart is well-equipped to defend its position as the largest retailer in the US.

鈥淔辞谤 us, it鈥檚 not about how we eliminate headcount or reduce staffing,鈥� said Andrew Russo, enterprise architect at Baca Systems. 鈥淥ur goal is, how do we make sure the customer is back up and running as quickly as possible?鈥�. Before AI, customer inquiries often took minutes, but using Salesforce鈥檚 Agentforce, customers get responses in as little as 5 to 10 seconds.

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.

You had ecommerce sales growing pretty strongly. Adobe said it was a record 8.7% growth to 241.1 billion. In terms of of growth, that's actually pretty close to what we forecast, which was around 9%. That's just something to call out. Sara Lebow (02:59):. Yeah. Good work to our forecasting team. Zak Stambor (03:02):. Yeah.

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.

Wayfair now plans to open another US store or two 鈥渋n short order鈥� and expand its brick-and-mortar model to international markets like Canada and the UK, Gulliver said. Our take: Layoffs are tough, but Wayfair is making the necessary moves to drive growth. Go further: Read how Wayfair and other housing-related retailers performed in our Retail & Ecommerce Earnings Q3 2024 report.

Almost half (49%) of US consumers have used an AI chatbot for customer service in the past year, per a November 2023 survey by Google and Ipsos. For some, the experience has been poor, with almost 20% of US shoppers citing chatbots as the most disruptive AI applications in their online shopping experiences, per a December 2023 Savanta and Intellias survey.

Retail has come off its lengthy run of outperforming overall US ad spending growth. While growth will dip below the average for all industries in 2024, the pace is set to pick up again in 2025 and 2026.

Retailers ended 2024 on a high: Holiday ecommerce sales surged by nearly 9% YoY as steep discounts and tariff fears spurred spending.

TikTok Shop plans to launch in Mexico next month: The move suggests the company is unfazed by the potential US ban.