蘑菇AV

Christmas Day is less than a week away, but some consumers are still chipping away at their lists. That鈥檚 why Walmart, Target, Best Buy, and Dollar General are announcing last-minute holiday deals for consumers seeking the perfect gift.

The news: The gaming industry is doubling down on handheld consoles. Nintendo鈥檚 Switch 2 shattered single-day sales records with an estimated 3 million units sold at launch, outpacing the Sony PS4鈥檚 historic numbers. Meanwhile, Microsoft announced its first handhelds鈥攖he ROG Xbox Ally and the ROG Xbox Ally X鈥攑artnering with Asus to blend Xbox and PC gaming in a portable format. They鈥檙e expected to launch during the holidays. Our take: As cloud and console experiences merge into portable form, game design and ad models are set to evolve fast鈥攐pening up fresh real estate for marketers, game studios, and tech platforms alike.

Temu, Shein, and TikTok Shop are winning this holiday season: Sales growth for all three outpaced larger players like Amazon and Target in November.

Shoppers are more comfortable than ever using BNPL鈥攁nd not just during the holidays. Buy now, pay later (BNPL) volume will hit $18.5 billion this holiday season, with Cyber Monday alone accounting for just shy of $1 billion in spend, per Adobe. That鈥檚 27.6% more than BNPL holiday sales volume in 2022.

Amazon Prime Day will be twice as long this year: The four-day sales event should boost sales and ad revenues, but growth will be hard to sustain long-term.

UK retailers face a challenging holiday season: The UK economy has grown in just one of the four months since Labour took power, exacerbating shopper gloom.

Consumers spent a record-breaking $314.9 billion online globally during this year鈥檚 Cyber Five, according to Salesforce. But there鈥檚 lots more to learn beyond top-line sales numbers鈥攆rom Target's Taylor Swift-fueled Black Friday surge to Gen Z's big spending habits. Here are five key stats on Cyber Five performance you may have missed and what they mean for the rest of the holiday season.

Amazon, Target, and malls were among this year鈥檚 Cyber Five winners: Roughly 197 million people shopped this year鈥檚 sales, leading to a surge in online and in-store spending.

As retailers eye the end of the holiday shopping season, they must shift their strategies to cater to resolution-driven purchases in the new year.

Retailers try to rein in return fraud: Ecommerce鈥檚 growth this holiday season increases the pressure on retailers to combat fraud without pushing consumers away.

TikTok Shop gears up for busy holiday season in the US, UK: The platform expects hefty ecommerce and ad growth this year as shoppers get used to transacting on the app