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Retail Brew delivers the latest retail industry news and insights surrounding marketing, DTC, and e-commerce to keep leaders and decision-makers up to date.

Retail Brew

Katishi Maake

retailbrew.com

Gen Zers are more resistant to ‘doom spending’ than you’d think

80% say doom spending and soft saving don’t reflect their financial habits: survey.

Gen Zers are more resistant to ‘doom spending’ than you’d think 

Resale is growing increasingly popular online: report 

45% of younger shoppers would prefer to buy secondhand online.

Alex Vuocolo

Shoppers’ pickier habits are spreading to essentials

Consumer spending reveals priorities.

Shoppers’ pickier habits are spreading to essentials, data shows  

E-Commerce

Vidhi Choudhary

Amazon’s longest running Prime Day concluded last week in a final add-to-cart rush—and now the numbers are in.

 $750 million in estimated sales for Amazon US during Prime Day 2025, up 4.9% from last year, while Adobe 

 US retailers generated $24.1 billion in overall e-commerce sales(up 30.3% YoY) between July 8 and July 11, the period coinciding with the Prime Day event.

“The event came down to a dramatic finish, with savvy brands fine-tuning their promotional strategies until the final hours while consumers responded with significant purchasing activity in the closing stretch,” said John Shea, head of commerce at PMG, in a 

The data by Momentum Commerce is based on sales of its roughly 50 clients like Therabody, Crocs and Beats that collectively generate around $7 billion yearly on Amazon.

As reported widely, the longest-running Prime Day was off to a 

, with Momentum Commerce reporting that Prime Day sales were 

 on Day 1 and around 35% on average for the first two days compared to Prime Day 2024. While the initial numbers were still higher than a regular day on Amazon, the margins were not impressive.

Day 3 sales, however, jumped 165% compared to the equivalent Prime Day period in 2024, per Momentum Commerce data. Meanwhile, add-to-cart activity ran ahead of conversion rates, suggesting that shoppers were stockpiling items in their carts while delaying final purchases until the event’s last day. Average discounts on deals on Amazon also grew incrementally each day from 21.4% on July 8 to 21.9% on July 11, Momentum Commerce data showed.

According to Mike Black, chief growth officer at Profitero+, Amazon’s first four-day Prime event featured “intense competition” between big brands and Amazon sellers. “We’re seeing steep discounts ranging as high as 40% to 80% across major categories—and this is just a preview of what’s to come during Cyber 5,” Black said in an email.

Skincare brands Medicube, Sol de Janiero, and La Roche-Posay were among the top-selling Prime Day brands in the beauty and personal care category, Profitero+ data showed, while Apple, Amazon, and Samsung dominated the electronics category. Profitero+ estimates sales share based on the brand’s items, their bestseller rank, and historical sales.

Still, Profitero+ research showed that 62% of shoppers adjusted their shopping behaviors to match their budget, Black said. “This competition means brands can’t rely on deep discounts alone; they must deliver lasting value and use content and reviews to drive loyalty in a more price-sensitive market.”

Amazon’s first ever four-day Prime Day finishes strong

Despite a slow start, shopper activity picked up on Days 3 and 4.

Live shopping platform TalkShopLive is taking off in the US, and TikTok Shop might have a hand in that growth.

TikTok, which has been credited with making 

 work in the US, was officially banned by Congress in January unless its China-based owners found a US buyer, but the platform continues to operate under extensions from the Trump administration.

TalkShopLive, the technology that powers live shopping for Walmart, has seen momentum build for its livestreams and short-form content, as TikTok future in the US remains uncertain. From Q1 2024 to Q1 2025, the livestream social-commerce platform says it saw a 59.5% jump in syndications of its embeddable video player, 40% longer livestreams, and stronger viewer engagement with 27.6% higher post-live watch time and 8.6% more live viewing time.

Founded in 2018, TalkShopLive gained prominence by striking strategic deals with platforms with Billboard and NBCUniversal and showcasing celebrities in the live commerce space with the likes of Matthew McConaughey, Alicia Keys and Dolly Parton. In January, it launched a shoppable short-form format called TSL Shoppettes, the platform’s latest integration with Meta to make Facebook and Instagram more shoppable.

TalkShopLive’s business operates on two fronts: the TalkShopLive Marketplace, where users can watch celebrities sell products, and its enterprise division, which partners with major retailers like Walmart. In a chat with Retail Brew, TalkShopLive CEO Bryan Moore said his business is evenly split between these two divisions, “but our enterprise division really just started growing much later and is scaling so rapidly.”

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

How has uncertainty linked to TikTok Shop impacted your business?

Since all of the news around TikTok, we have seen an over 75% uptick in inbound from brands and retailers seeking to do diversified programs with Talkshoplive. We’re also shoppable on Instagram. We’re shoppable on Facebook. So the opportunity to go live and then distribute your product to multiple different platforms taking off the dependency of one.

The thing that’s so great about TikTok Shop is it drove a big adoption of the medium. But the thing is, now retailers and brands are continuing to look for—what is that solution? When you rely on a single social platform, that’s a tactic. But what brands and retailers need to develop is a video commerce strategy and that strategy is distributed not reliant on one platform.

Did this shift in thinking happen after TikTok’s ban in January?

What it did was it made it very top of mind for all of the holding companies and all of the retailers and all of the brands that said, if our video commerce strategy is actually only a tactic of one platform, we can't have so much of our business dependent on that one platform. How do we distribute the content so that we can have an overall strategy that drives success for video commerce, regardless of what happens to one platform?

Going back to that 75% stat of inbounds from brands that once relied heavily on TikTok, what is their headspace like?

Despite what’s happening with TikTok, they are still all looking for driving full-funnel results.

What’s one key learning from all of this?

What we realized really early on is the solution that retailers are searching for, creators are searching for, is how not to be dependent on one single social platform for their video commerce, but how to drive distribution of that content and make it shoppable everywhere it is.

What’s the live shopping landscape in the US like?

Consumers are adopting live shopping and video commerce overall. Our Talkshoplive Marketplace, for instance, we’re up over 100% in sales Q1 last year versus Q1 this year.

No. And it’s continuing to grow, and I think that it’s from the retail partners. But also, we’re seeing a big demand from creators and brand collaborations.

Can you expand on demand from creators and brand collaborations?

A lot of people are coming to Talkshoplive to launch their products.

On our marketplace, our gateway categories were books and music. We started impacting the New York Times bestseller list. The top artists sometimes move up to 50% of our first week sales in products. But as we’ve grown to expand with our retail partners, we’re also seeing food, home, beauty all significantly picking up.

Retailers don’t want to be dependent on one social platform 

Bryan Moore said the platform has seen an over 75% uptick in inbound partnerships from brands and retailers.

TalkShopLive CEO: Retailers don’t want to be dependent on one social platform 

Erin Cabrey

 spotlight Retail Brew’s readers. Want to be featured in an upcoming edition? Click 

Ankur Daga is co-founder and CEO of online jewelry retailer Angara.

How would you describe your job to someone who doesn't work in retail? 

My job is to lead the Angara team in reinventing the jewelry buying experience, transforming it from a transaction into a journey. We’re reimagining the entire process of buying fine jewelry, from sourcing gemstones and designing each piece to merchandising to online customers, and ultimately creating an exceptional product. Since our founding, I have remained committed to providing jewelry that blends high-quality design with superior craftsmanship, all at a more accessible and affordable price.

One thing we can’t guess about your job from your LinkedIn profile? 

I’m a racecar driver in my free time! I love competition and the thrill of constantly calculating risk versus reward. There are a lot of parallels between entrepreneurship and racecar driving—you’re always thinking three turns ahead and figuring out how quickly you can accelerate safely to reach your next goal.

What’s your favorite project you’ve worked on?

 Recently, Angara entered the Indian market, marking a significant milestone and a notable opportunity for our brand, expanding access to our natural and lab grown diamond and colored gemstone jewelry. It also represented a personal milestone for both my wife/co-founder and me, highlighting our family ties to India and the jewelry market. This was an all-hands-on-deck expansion that came with hurdles, but ultimately proved to be extremely successful, achieving profitability just six months after the online soft launch.

Which retail trend are you most excited about right now, and why? 

Colored gemstones, whether lab-grown or natural, have gained popularity in recent years, and it’s a category we have been dedicated to revitalizing throughout our company’s journey. There’s a lot of opportunity that the growing demand of lab grown unlocks. Consumers can now purchase the pieces they’ve always dreamed of at a price they can afford, democratizing the jewelry industry and unlocking a whole new suite of options for them. Dream engagement rings used to be out of reach for a majority of consumers and now, you can get a two to three carat diamond for a fraction of the price.

A single shot of espresso twice a day. Keeps the energy high.

The worst piece of advice I ever received was…

From a hiring standpoint, that you can always try someone out for three months and see how it goes. Whenever we’ve done that, it’s ended up being the wrong decision. I’ve learned that we need to be 110% sure about someone before bringing them onto the team.

What was your favorite retail product when you were 15, and what’s your favorite retail product now? 

While not a specific product, I loved going through the BEST catalog at 15 (BEST was a department store across the US, and this was basically Amazon in a book). I’d compare various products and see which option I’d buy if I had the choice. Now, my favorite product would have to be the Eight Sleep Pod 4 Ultra. It’s helped me sleep for an hour and a half less every day, while feeling more rested, which is extremely beneficial when trying to grow a company.

Coworking with Ankur Daga

He’s co-founder and CEO of Angara.

Andrew Adam Newman

In late June, while much of the US sweltered under an early-summer heat wave, things were heating up at the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter, too.

, which is about the size of a microwave oven and claims to be the “first personal 3D-texture UV printer,” enabling consumers to print directly on a range of materials and objects, became the most funded project ever for Kickstarter.

The 60-day campaign, which had a $500,000 goal, ended on June 28 having raised $46.8 million, besting the previous record of $41.8 million by fantasy writer Brandon Sanderson, whose project involved publishing four novels over the course of 2023.

With the popularity of crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and GoFundMe, you’d be forgiven if you thought these platforms had been around for decades. But not so long ago these funding platforms for startups were themselves upstarts: Indiegogo launched in 2008, Kickstarter in 2009, and GoFundMe in 2010.

Among the brands that launched on Kickstarter are VR headset maker 

While the raison d’être for these platforms—raising cash to produce a product or project—is nothing to sneeze at, many brands who turn to them find that a well-run fundraising campaign delivers much more than capital. Founders who’ve had crowdfunding success also laud the direct (and often ongoing) connection they gain to consumers, critical feedback they receive in products’ early stages, and the sort of buzz that can lead to retail distribution.

Javon Frazier, founder and CEO of Maestro Media, which specializes in adapting popular IP and pop culture properties into tabletop games, is well known for his numerous successful Kickstarter campaigns.

, had a goal of raising $100,000 in 30 days and ended up raising $6.7 million, making it the 30th most funded campaign ever on Kickstarter. In all, Maestro’s Kickstarter campaigns have raised more than $15 million, according to Frazier.

“Kickstarter is a good platform to not only validate demand, but also showcase the product, and then go into retail after,” Frazier told Retail Brew.

While a moderately successful Kickstarter campaign can help get meetings with retailers for distribution, at least one of Maestro’s campaigns have been so successful that it has been retailers contacting them for meetings.

Shortly after that historic 30-day fundraising campaign for 

 in 2021, for example, “retailers were reaching out directly to us,” Frazier said.

Peak Design, which makes bags and gear for cameras and everyday use, completed its first successful Kickstarter campaign 

 Retail Brew in 2023, the company first used Kickstarter to pay for the production run of its first product (a 

 that could attach cameras to numerous items), with backers—as is typical with the platform—essentially pre-ordering it at a discount.

But, like Frazier’s Maestro and many other companies, long after his company was well capitalized and had no need to pass the hat for a production run, Dering found Kickstarter to be an essential marketing and sales channel.

“Kickstarter has been masquerading as something other than a sales channel for a long time, but it 

 a sales channel—and a great one,” Dering previously told Retail Brew. “Because it also comes with a way of creating closeness between the brand and the consumer that just doesn’t exist in any other sales channel.”

Kickstarter reports that more than 24 million Kickstarter users have backed projects, and more than a third of them have backed more than one project, which suggests that many early-adopter types are using the platform as a marketplace.

“What we’re able to provide for people who are bringing projects to the site is this audience of folks who are just genuinely curious about discovering new things,” Nick Yulman, Kickstarter’s director of outreach, told Retail Brew.

Kickstarter campaigns typically begin with an opening video, often a founder recounting the aha moment for the product, its attributes, and the challenge of bringing it to life, followed by updates about the campaign’s progress, and a stream of comments from backers and would-be backers.

“Kickstarter is a storytelling platform as well as a fundraising platform,” Yulman said. “That [initial] video, and the whole structure of laying out, like, ‘I have an idea, and this is why it’s important, and this is who I am, and this is why I want you to get involved,’ is really powerful.”

Since he’s well known for striking Kickstarter gold, Frazier said about 5% of the emails he gets on an average day are from founders who recently launched campaigns that are falling flat.

However, at that juncture there’s not much to be done because the key is to be strategic and pre-game a crowdfunding campaign, he said.

“The biggest common misconception about the platform is that people just say, ‘I’m just gonna launch on Kickstarter, and it’s gonna be successful,’” Frazier said.

“Having pre-buzz, pre-awareness, PR, the right imagery, the right reviews,” he continued, “all those things are important to be successful.”

“Kickstarter is a box office kind of thing, where you gotta have a big opening, and you gotta have a big closing, and making sure that you’re successful on Day One is part of the strategy.”

While the barn-raising ethic is alive and well on crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo, and companies have essentially pre-sold untold numbers of products, one thing you can’t do on the sites is offer shares and an ownership stake.

That’s where companies like DealMaker, a platform and consultancy that helps companies raise capital through online crowdfunding, come in. Enabled by the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act that President Barack Obama signed into law in 2012, the law allows companies to seek investment from so-called “

“We’ve really created the next level of engagement where the customers are saying, ‘Yes, not only do I want to see this product get built, but I want this brand to be a part of my life,’” Rebecca Kacaba, CEO and co-founder of DealMaker, told Retail Brew. “‘I want to back this company; I want to actually be an owner in this company.’”

Unlike Kickstarter, which does not offer equity to campaign backers, DealMaker works with companies to offer shares in their companies.

At cocktail bar chain Death & Co, for instance, a 

 at the top of its landing page urges visitors to “Invest in Death & Co and become a part of our future,” and links to a 

 with several investment tiers that offer perks along with the purchased shares. Invest $200,000, for instance, and you’ll receive myriad VIP perks at the restaurants like priority reservations, drink discounts, special events, and even a cocktail party for up to 50 people.

So far Death & Co has raised $5.6 million through DealMaker, according to Kacaba. Among other retail brands that have raised money through selling shares with DealMaker:

, the automated window shade and curtain brand, raised $9.4 million.

As novel as everyday consumers investing in their favorite brands may seem now, Kacaba predicts it will be commonplace soon enough.

“Three years from now, you’re going to walk into a grocery store, turn over your favorite bag of chips, scan a QR code, and become an investor,” Kacaba said. “We are making investing part of people’s everyday lives, and that is how you interact with the brands that you love.”

Kickstarter's home page on a phone screen in 2012. 

How crowdfunding changed everything

Platforms like Kickstarter helped launch Allbirds, Peloton, Brooklinen, and more.

Sales for Amazon’s extended Prime Day event that started on July 8 are aren’t quite hitting the heights Amazon saw last year.

 $7.9 billion in online spending on Day 1. However, data from Momentum Commerce 

 showed that Prime Day sales were down by 41% on Day 1 compared to last year. Last summer, Amazon’s Prime Day event 

 sales worth $14.2 billion on July 16 and 17.

“We’re pacing towards growth versus last year’s event,” Elizabeth Marsten, VP of Commerce Media at Tinuiti, a performance marketing agency with a strong focus on commerce media, told Retail Brew. “So even though last year was two days, if the pacing maintains through days three and four, it will surpass last year’s Prime Day in aggregate.”

This year, Amazon focused on a heavy promotional strategy for Prime Day, but many sellers have 

 under tariff pressure. At the same time, some brands selling on Amazon can’t afford to both pay more for their products and offer big discounts. This year, big box retailers are also stretching out their sales events alongside an extended version of Prime Day.

Still, Amazon’s longest running Prime Day will end on July 11 and those final day numbers will provide a full picture of the extent of the turnout, though comparisons to last year pointed downward at the midway point.

There is also an overall decline across ad spend, impressions, clicks and conversion, Marsten added. “There’s not nearly as much urgency,” she said. “There’s not nearly as many lightning deals or things with those timed countdowns on them. So, it is very clear, people are spreading it out.”

Amazon’s marathon edition of Prime Day showed mixed results at the halfway mark

According to Adobe Analytics, the deals event reported $7.9 billion in online spending on Day One, but other data painted a different picture.

 with Kroger in December, Albertsons has been on a journey to prove that it’s just fine on its own.

The grocer has managed to get its “mojo” back, per former CEO Vivek Sankaran, in part by doubling down on its digital business to help it compete with giants like Walmart and Costco. Albertsons’ digital sales rose 24% YoY in Q4, the company reported in April, while its loyalty members jumped 15% to 45.6 million.

Digital sales have proven to be crucial to grocery industry growth over the past year. E-grocery sales surged during the Covid-19 pandemic, then cooled between 2021 and mid-2024 as shoppers returned to IRL shopping. But sales have 

 up again in the past year as retailers double down on promotions for their pickup and delivery services. Sales jumped 27% YoY to $8.7 billion in May, according to Brick Meets Click.

Albertsons launched its first-party digital experiences through its app just four years ago, and has been working to catch up to its competitors since then, Jill Pavlovich, SVP of digital shopping experiences at Albertsons, who oversees the grocer’s app, website, and in-store digital offerings, told Retail Brew.

“As we think about this year, the path that we have ahead of us, it’s really taking what we’ve developed a step farther and really bringing the digital experiences more deeply into stores,” she said.

Four platforms—e-commerce, loyalty, pharmacy and health, and its mobile app—have been key to its blossoming digital business, Sankaran said in January.

Albertsons’s mobile app has served as a “Swiss Army knife of tools” to help shoppers, Pavlovich said, adding that last year was centered around “strengthen[ing] the core” and focusing on the “basics,” with updates that included in-store geolocation with real-time coupons. It’s also recently added a capability for consumers to upload their own recipes or recipes they’ve found online into the app and, using generative AI, digitize them, making the recipes shoppable across Albertsons’s offerings.

“This year is all about taking the things that reduce the cognitive load and taking them a step farther, leveraging the rate at which technology is changing to really give our customers a human multiplier—make it super easy for them to shop with us,” she said.

Daily monitoring of call service logs, checking reviews in the App Store and Google Play Store, and connecting with customers (and non-customers) directly to get their feedback helps the retailer establish both its annual digital product roadmap as well as make any real time adjustments necessary, Pavlovich said.

That continual iteration is necessary as more tech-savvy, younger consumers opt for online shopping for themselves and their early-stage families for the first time, she noted.

“Their expectation of technology is omnichannel experiences, so they have a lot less barriers to entry to engage digitally and convert online,” she said. “If we continue to keep up with our customer and meet their needs through our digital and omnichannel experiences, we’ll see that growth continue for Albertsons and also for the industry as well.”

As Albertsons takes on online grocery leaders like Walmart and Amazon, Pavlovich said its loyalty program (which it 

 last year) and its “differentiated services” including special occasion planning offerings like catering and party supplies, will help it compete. This year, the grocer aims to add digital ordering capabilities for in-store services like its bakery and floral department, she noted.

Albertsons also announced at Cannes Lions this year that it’s 

 in-store digital ad displays as it looks to grow the reach of its retail media network Albertsons Media Collective. The pilot is in its early days, but Pavlovich said “initial feedback is positive” as the grocer aims to use ads to boost discovery and brand awareness for shoppers.

“It’s not just an ad to be an ad; it really has to aid in the customer shopping journey and purchasing decision,” she said. 

Pavlovich is hopeful that customers will be receptive to digital in-store screens, though she noted the grocer has had “varying successes” with other innovations. The in-store mode for its app has been a bright spot, quickly adopted by 10 million customers, Pavlovich said. However, checkout options similar to Amazon’s Just Walk Out technology, which the grocer previously 

"It’s been very experience-dependent, and we just continue to watch and keep a pulse, because the trends continue to emerge, and we’re learning of adoption in other industries or from other retailers,” she said. “We want to make sure that we keep up and we try again.”

Inside the growth of Albertsons’s digital business

Jill Pavlovich, the grocer’s SVP of digital shopping experiences, breaks down updates to its mobile app, AI innovations, and more.  

Wayne Liu is chief growth officer and president of America at beauty and fashion tech company Perfect Corp.

How would you describe your job to someone who doesn’t work in retail? 

As Perfect Corp’s CGO and president of America, I help some of the world’s biggest beauty and fashion brands bring cutting-edge AI experiences—like virtual product try-ons, skin and hair analyses, and more—to life. My job is to bring together technology, creativity, and business strategy to help brands use these tools to enhance how people discover and interact with products, whether online or in-store.

A big part of my job is acting as an interpreter, bridging the gap between technical teams, creative marketers, and brand executives. I often find myself helping AI engineers see the artistry of beauty and brand leaders understand the potential of code. It’s like being multilingual, just across disciplines.

 Creating PerfectGPT, our AI-powered beauty assistant, has been one of my proudest moments. It brings together analytical AI, generative AI, years of domain expertise, and an intuitive user experience to offer shoppers smart, scalable, and deeply personalized beauty advice. Building and perfecting PerfectGPT has been a long and, at times, challenging process. We have high standards for its specificity and accuracy, and meeting them has taken a lot of trial and error! But, we’re gearing up for PerfectGPT’s commercial rollout this year. I’m so proud of the work our team has put in and excited to see the spark in customers’ eyes as they experience AI that just “gets them”—that’s always rewarding.

Which emerging retail trend are you most excited about right now, and why? 

I’m fascinated by the shift from traditional, linear shopping behaviors—like “search and buy” or “browse and buy”—to a more dynamic, multi-directional journey. Today’s consumers jump between inspiration, education, evaluation, and purchase in a non-linear way, often influenced by social content, virtual try-ons, expert reviews, and AI recommendations—all at once. What excites me is how AI enables brands to adapt to this complexity and meet consumers wherever they are in the journey. AI can recognize intent, preferences, and context in real time to serve up the right experience—whether that’s a product match, a virtual try-on, or tailored advice. Retailers are no longer concerned with leading shoppers down a certain path anymore, but instead about designing a responsive ecosystem that follows shoppers’ leads.

 Grande hot latte with 2% milk, no sugar. It’s the perfect blend of calm and focus before a day full of AI, innovation, and investor calls.

Worst piece of advice you’ve received? 

“Act quick, fall fast, learn faster.” It sounds bold, but the reality is that sometimes you need to act fast, and other times, thoughtful planning is necessary. In high-stakes situations, you can’t always afford to fall—and if you’ve planned well, you likely won’t. Strategy is about timing, context, and clarity—not speed.

Vinyl records, both then and now. Today, I admire records’ craftsmanship and sound, and the ritual that spinning a record offers. At 15, it was all about the music, the magic of album art, and the process of searching for that perfect record. I remember spending hours digging through the stacks, flipping through rows of albums; when something jumped out at me, it felt like striking gold. That’s one of my favorite parts of retail: that discovery can be an experience in-and-of-itself. In an AI-driven world, vinyl is a reminder that sometimes the best things are unexpected and happen by chance!