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Walmart announces lengthy beauty sale as it looks to protect its advantage: The retailer is expanding its assortment and refining the in-store experience to appeal to a wider variety of shoppers.

Amazon is the largest retail marketplace in the US, bringing in $328.30 billion in sales, per our forecast. eBay comes in second ($35.02 billion), followed by Walmart ($10.64 billion). Other marketplaces, like Shein and Temu, are also fighting for their share of consumer dollars by offering lower prices than competitors.

Retailers turn to genAI to help with product listings: Puma, Walmart, and Amazon are among the companies that see the tech as an opportunity to deliver a more personalized, relevant experience to shoppers while improving productivity.

While Amazon dominates, Walmart and Temu are growing faster, and more retailers across sectors鈥攆rom department stores to grocery to specialty retailers鈥攁re setting up their own marketplaces. As marketplaces compete for sellers, their operators will strive to provide customer data and tools that can drive sales. Mobile is critical to supporting cross-channel engagement.

With the ascent of Chinese ecommerce disruptors and the ongoing rivalry between Amazon and Walmart, the upcoming holiday season is expected to bring some big shifts. Some of those shifts include the lessening of Cyber Five鈥檚 importance and retailers losing focus on profitability, said our analysts Jeremy Goldman and Zak Stambor on a recent episode of the 鈥淏ehind the Numbers鈥� podcast.

Assess which marketplaces to work with. More like this:. Walmart, Amazon, Instacart make search enhancements. How TikTok, Temu, and Sephora are making online shopping fun. Clothing, groceries, and beauty products are popular digital purchases. How seamless payments, social commerce, and loyalty apps are driving mcommerce growth. A previous version of this story noted unique visitors.

Walmart. Wayfair.

These integrations have already proliferated in the marketplace. For example, Disney, NBCUniversal, and Paramount have partnerships with Walmart, which completed its acquisition of smart TV manufacturer and measurement data supplier Vizio in December 2024.

Dollar store consumers, especially lower-income households, are facing financial difficulties, relying on credit cards to cover necessities. Retailers like Dollar General and Dollar Tree are focusing on pricing and promotions to keep customers shopping, but there has been a decline in discretionary spending from middle- and high-income consumers, who may be turning to mass retailers like Walmart.

Walmart to sell Bonobos as digitally native D2C brands lose their luster: WHP Global and Express will acquire the brand for $75 million to shore up the latter鈥檚 business.

Retail marketplaces like Amazon, Walmart, and Shopify have incorporated generative AI into their platforms to help merchants and consumers alike, while companies like The Coca-Cola Co. and Abercrombie & Fitch are even using it to develop new products. The lesson: ChatGPT introduced the world to generative AI, and the explosion it set off will have rippling effects for years to come.

The insight: The gap between Target and its mass merchant competitors Amazon and Walmart is widening. While Amazon and Walmart are consolidating their grip on consumer spending after investments in value and convenience, Target鈥檚 largely discretionary assortment and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) controversies are sharply curbing its appeal. Our take: Shoppers are prioritizing necessities over discretionary goods and favoring retailers that offer value and convenience.

CAIT鈥攁longside Praveen Khandelwal, a lawmaker from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party鈥攊s calling for the government to suspend Amazon鈥檚 and Flipkart鈥檚 ecommerce operations in India, which would be a blow to the overseas ambitions of both Amazon and Walmart. Looking ahead: India is hugely important for digital marketplaces as they try to gain an early advantage in the country鈥檚 nascent ecommerce market.

Amazon accounted for 80% of marketplace sales, 40% of ecommerce sales, and 4% of retail sales in the US in 2023, per Marketplace Pulse.

It is the fastest-growing retail marketplace we track, beating out eBay and Walmart. What it means: With 51.1 million unique US visitors in January 2024, the Temu app was one of a handful of retailers (alongside Amazon and Walmart) to land within the top 20 smartphone apps by user, according to Comscore.

By contrast, leading RMNs have not gained much traction: Amazon鈥檚 Retail Ad Service, launched in January, has yet to announce major partners, while Walmart Connect has reportedly reversed course after pitching a similar solution. Intermediaries are differentiating through scaled, retail-ready infrastructure.

Walmart is upbeat despite tariff turmoil: The retailer expects to take share as shoppers grow more value-conscious.

Walmart Canada is the nation鈥檚 second-largest ecommerce retailer, expected to account for 6.3% of ecommerce sales in 2025. The company鈥檚 strong growth is thanks to its assortment of grocery and general merchandise. Their ecommerce business is growing rapidly thanks to their expansion of store-fulfilled pickup, delivery services, and an expanding marketplace.

The US consumer is holding up, according to Walmart: The retailer raised its full-year outlook after solid spending from value-seeking shoppers drove it to a Q2 earnings beat鈥攁lthough it warned of uncertainty heading into election season.

Which retailer just launched a third-party marketplace, which has more than doubled its online merchandise? A) Marshalls B) Target C) Sephora D) Best Buy. Best Buy鈥檚 digital marketplace will include expanded tech offerings, as well as new categories like licensed sports merchandise and musical instruments, according to a press release. August 19, 2025.

And ultimately I think that would hurt the small and mid-sized retailers that rely on these marketplaces to drive sales. Marcus Johnson:. So, it's a big deal, as you said, marketplace sales going up is 60% of the sales more than on Amazon's site coming from third party sellers. As you mentioned as well, this could affect all marketplaces: Walmart, eBay, beyond, so not just Amazon's.

The retailer鈥檚 investments in faster delivery and broadening its online marketplace selection helped drive a major jump in ecommerce sales. Our take:. Walmart is well-positioned to capitalize on consumers' sharp focus on value: It can offer lower prices than many competitors and increasingly emphasizes convenience.

Retail media鈥攅specially on platforms like Amazon, Walmart Connect, and Instacart鈥攊s tightly linked to product availability, competitive pricing, and shopper intent. Tariffs on imported goods, particularly from China, could squeeze margins for marketplace sellers and force price increases, suppressing ad spend.

While they remain a primary destination for cash-strapped consumers, stiff competition from the likes of Walmart and Target alongside the rise of ultra-cheap Chinese ecommerce marketplaces is eating away at their market share, while economic conditions are causing their core customers to pump the brakes on spending.