E-Commerce

As we witnessed empty storefronts mounting — along with boxes piling up on porches — it became clear last year that the pandemic was having a massive and rapid impact on the retail landscape. You weren’t imagining or exaggerating those boarded-up storefronts. In 2020 alone, 30 major U.S. retailers filed for bankruptcy, closing more than…

Retail sales increased during August as consumer demand outweighed the pandemic, supply chain disruptions and other factors affecting spending, the National Retail Federation (NRF) said Thursday. The U.S. Census Bureau reported overall retail sales in August were up 0.7 percent seasonally adjusted from July and up 15.1 percent year-over-year. Despite occasional month-over-month declines, sales have grown…

Digital commerce has emerged as a winning business strategy since 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic swept the globe. While a number of retailers such as Nike and Williams-Sonoma successfully reached consumers without being able to physically interact with them, most retail brands had to find new and innovative ways to connect with their customers. A…

Holiday retail sales are likely to increase between 7 percent and 9 percent in 2021, according to Deloitte’s annual holiday retail forecast. Overall, Deloitte’s retail and distribution practice projects that holiday sales will total $1.28 trillion to $1.3 trillion during the November to January timeframe. Deloitte also forecasts that e-commerce sales will grow by 11 percent…

The pandemic made for one of the most organic and authentic tests of the world’s progress towards digital innovation, demonstrating how resilient all businesses were. One of the greatest, long-lasting effects of COVID-19 on the retail industry is the digital movement it accelerated.

Retailers accelerated their shift toward e-commerce during the pandemic. But for all the excitement around e-commerce — a category eMarketer projects will grow by 13 percent in the U.S., totaling more than $900 billion in annual sales — the online shopping experience still has plenty of room for improvement, especially when it comes to assisted…

The unprecedented rise of e-commerce experienced in 2020 has shown no signs of slowing down for the foreseeable future. Online retail sales are expected to reach $6.39 trillion, with e-commerce representing 21.8 percent of these sales. This trend is powered by consumers discovering new comfort levels, from purchasing groceries, miscellaneous gifts to household items, among…

The other day I purchased a hoodie from a direct-to-consumer brand that I like. “The softest hoodie ever” was how they hooked me, but post-checkout I found myself upsold to buying eye cream. How did they do it? Co-selling. And it’s going to transform every brand into a marketplace. Co-selling is on the rise, and…

In episode 312 of Total Retail Talks, Editor-in-Chief Joe Keenan interviews Marcelo Podesta, president of National Business Furniture (NBF), a Milwaukee-based commercial furniture retailer. Podesta discusses the various verticals and customers NBF serves, his career journey that brought him to the company, and how the business has adapted to changes in the furniture market due to…

The global e-commerce landscape would, at this point, be unimaginable without Amazon.com. In fact, Amazon is often used synonymously with the term e-commerce: Amazon is e-commerce. However, this statement doesn't hold up if you take a closer look at the market shares worldwide. Amazon’s market share in Europe is just 9.8 percent as of September…