E-Commerce

The retail industry was ripe for change as soon as direct-to-consumer (D-to-C) and the digital world grew in popularity almost a decade ago. However, in 2021, retail e-commerce sales amounted to nearly $4.9 trillion, a figure only forecasted to grow by 50 percent over the next four years, reaching $7.4 trillion by 2025. While change…

While U.S. consumers are starting to feel the impact of prolonged inflation, as food and gas prices eat up more of their income, they have, for the most part, been resilient throughout the pandemic and world events. The current economic uncertainty has led to a two-fold question about shopping behavior: What are consumers feeling about…

Retail sales increased in June even as inflation climbed higher and drove up prices across the board, the National Retail Federation (NRF) said last week. NRF’s calculation of retail sales, which is based on Census numbers but excludes automobile dealers, gasoline stations and restaurants, reported that June was up 0.6 percent from May and up 5.8…

Economists are warning that a recession might be around the corner, but this doesn’t mean that online brands can’t continue growing and winning customers. With the right mix of preparation, strategy and technology, a potential downturn can represent a transformation and a tailwind that sets your e-commerce business up for success in the short and…

Consumers heading to Amazon.com for its annual Prime Day shopping event are spending more on average than they did last year, despite the inflation the U.S. economy is facing, according to Numerator, a data and tech company serving the market research space. The two-day e-commerce shopping event has, as of the morning of July 13, generated…

Just in time for this year's Prime Day shopping event, Amazon.com launched its new Small Business badge to highlight small and artisan brands on its Marketplace, as well as its “Support Small Businesses to Win Big” sweepstakes. The e-commerce giant is also offering curated collections for consumers to shop from Black-owned, women-owned, and Veteran-owned businesses. In this…

Retailers know the pandemic transformed e-commerce with a flood of orders from existing customers, brand-new online shoppers, and consumers from other countries. Of course, order volume and customer profiles aren’t the only e-commerce changes since March 2020. Understanding the nuances of those changes is critical for online retail success now. To get a clearer picture…

Technology has been woven into the fabric of our daily lives, with consumers banking, communicating and shopping online. However, the convenience of e-commerce can come at an expense. As consumers have moved deeper toward a digital-first world, questions and concerns about data privacy have grown exponentially. Under increasing pressure, Google recently announced that it will…

Your brand’s customers are getting sick of artificial intelligence, chatbots and automated experiences. Automation isn’t the enemy, but we’ve gone too far; 75 percent of customers want to interact with a real person more as technology improves.

In episode 355 of Total Retail Talks, Editor-in-Chief Joe Keenan interviews Vijay Talwar, CEO of Wish.com, one of the world’s largest online marketplaces. Talwar discusses his professional background in retail (1:02), what excited him about joining Wish as chief executive (3:10), and his turnaround strategy to revitalize the business (5:12). He shares how Wish is…