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And in a Prime Day first, Amazon teamed up with Priceline to offer exclusive travel discounts to take advantage of strong travel demand. Looking ahead: Given the economic pressures on consumers, ranging from inflation to student loan payments to the end of emergency SNAP benefits, it鈥檚 unsurprising that many are using Prime Day sales as an opportunity to stock up on essentials.

Walmart鈥檚 Walmart Deals sale, which the retail giant promises will be its 鈥渓argest savings event ever鈥� across categories such as electronics, home, toys, and travel, runs from July 8-11. Walmart+ members can access the discounts five hours ahead of the general public at noon ET.

Travel and events will remain top spending categories:. US spending on movies and live performances grew 31% YoY through September 2023, per Mastercard. This can be attributed to the popularity of Taylor Swift鈥檚 and Beyonce鈥檚 tours, as well as the 鈥淏arbenheimer鈥� phenomenon.

However, many of those consumers either shifted their spending to travel and other services or pulled back due to inflation. Although luxury sales remain well above prepandemic levels, they are decelerating as they slowly return to more typical growth patterns. After US personal luxury sales grew a healthy 13.3% last year, our luxury goods forecast expects growth to decelerate to 6.6% this year.

Shoppers are willing to travel for free returns. Some 40% of shoppers would travel up to five miles for a free return, according to a September 2022 survey by Happy Returns. Once customers are in stores, retailers can use store credit and special deals to encourage return dollars turn into another purchase.

This included pivoting rewards from travel toward everyday spending categories like groceries. Many also introduced rewards that catered to pandemic-era consumer trends, like at-home fitness programs and streaming services. Why it matters: Now, issuers are spending more than ever on card benefits, even as consumer spending growth wobbles.

Travel tie-ups. Like rival Mastercard, Visa benefited from strong travel demand last quarter. Domestic US travel surged 84% YoY during the period, per Emburse. Travelers attending the FIFA World Cup and loosened domestic travel restrictions in China also helped boost Visa鈥檚 volume.

And nondiscretionary spending is holding up, with strong growth in services, especially travel and entertainment. McInerney expects Visa鈥檚 volume will keep relying on the strength of cross-border travel. This article originally appeared in Insider Intelligence's Payments Innovation Briefing鈥攁 daily recap of top stories reshaping the payments industry.

Block reported strong growth in nontraditional categories for BNPL, including food and beverage (+251%), travel and experiences (+57%), and auto (+32%). Shoppers are interested in financing a wider variety of purchases, which could support BNPL providers鈥� recent efforts to diversify into segments like food and travel.

As part of its mission to make every Pin shoppable, Pinterest has added a Travel Catalogs feature, allowing travel brands to upload their products and turn them into dynamic Pins with pricing, images, and descriptions. It also introduced a new solution called Premiere Spotlight, placing video ads on the search page, the first place users go to find new ideas. YouTube plays defense with ad-skippers.

In response to the CrowdStrike breach, Microsoft limits access to its Windows kernel, but vendors worry the new rules may stifle competition.

Travel and hospitality brands like United Airlines are particularly well positioned to break into commerce media due to the massive amounts of first-party data they collect from customers.

As people get back to travel and commuting, OOH spend has returned to normal quicker than anticipated. This year, we expect total spend in the US to hit $9.22 billion, which is more than the $8.65 billion we saw pre-pandemic in 2019. Due to this normalization, OOH spend is rising even as other media channels take a hit.

For example, ads served in a sports bar during a Lions game might feature Great Lakes tourism, alcohol, or local car dealerships. Ads served on a gas station pump on summer nights might feature a cold energy drink on sale in the convenience store. Bars and venues can run their own ads during TV commercials on many of these platforms. What are the potential downsides of OOH TV advertising?

The continued struggles of its linear networks and the impact of external challenges like global travel trends on its parks business indicate that Disney must maintain a flexible and innovative strategy to ensure long-term success and stability in a rapidly changing entertainment industry.

The new Paze digital wallet, for example, can recommend stored card options鈥攕uch as a co-branded travel credit card when purchasing an airline ticket鈥攁t checkout. This more closely aligns card rewards and benefits with the type of purchase a user makes. Passwordless checkout removes friction.

Yesterday鈥檚 Chart of the Day: Have rewards, will travel.

When users want to learn how to decorate a living room, apply a current makeup technique, or find a hotel in a travel destination, social search ads can help them learn something new鈥攁nd learn about a brand. Make organic social content searchable.

Travel platforms. Simple standalone products鈥攍ike hospitalization or disability due to an accident鈥攚ould be the best fit for this narrower use case. Online travel agencies like Booking.com or short-term rental platforms like Airbnb are digitally mature and have experience offering insurance to hosts and partners. The right partnerships bring more consumers into the fold鈥攁nd they鈥檙e primed to buy.

Apparel and accessories and toys and hobbies are the only gifting categories set to outpace the ecommerce sales growth rate benchmark of 11.3% for the full holiday season, with demand for clothes staying elevated amid the return-to-office, travel, and social events. It won鈥檛 be an easy holiday season for a lot of specialty retailers.

While it remains to be seen whether the company鈥檚 customers will embrace the opportunity to arrange for furniture assembly or landscaping services through the platform, the success of other initiatives, including a travel booking service and grocery delivery, is empowering Uber to look for more expansion opportunities.

#TikTokMadeMeBuyIt: While Gen Z consumers have not been immune to the effects of inflation, they鈥檙e less likely to cut back on fun or impulse purchases, dining out, or leisure travel than millennial, Gen X, and Boomer shoppers. Nearly one-third (32%) of Gen Z consumers report shopping online at least once per day, the most out of any generation.

Particularly hard-hit areas include the food sector (20% decline) and travel and family verticals (29% drops). Why it matters: SGE delivers precise answers to user queries directly within a chat, reducing the necessity for users to click through to publishers' websites. If users find what they need directly in an SGE chat, their incentive to visit the original content source decreases.

Rewards should change with spending patterns, potentially focusing on everyday spending like groceries rather than travel to attract savings-conscious consumers. Embrace alternative payment methods. Higher rates could give nontraditional payment plans like buy now, pay later (BNPL) a chance to steal market share from credit cards as consumers seek out more flexible and interest-free payment options.

Verticals outside of retail, such as financial services (e.g., Chase, PayPal) and travel (e.g., Lyft, Expedia), are increasingly leveraging their first-party transaction-based data to launch media offerings of their own. Non-endemic advertising is a natural fit for sectors that have access to purchase-based data but don鈥檛 sell products directly to consumers.