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E-commerce had a volatile 2023. From declining sales in luxury to behemoth partnerships to the resurgence of influencer marketing, the last 12 months experienced several changes and surprises that even the analysts were not expecting. Reflecting on the performance and strategies of social commerce platforms, brands and marketplaces in 2023 has set the scene for a fast-moving and competitive market for 2024. Omnia looks at how the previous year ended within e-commerce and what industry players and shoppers may expect in 2024.

The end of the third quarter of 2023 saw TikTok launch its new Shop tab in the US market, adding to an already unpredictable and fast-moving marketplace arena. While it may be too early to place its seat in the market, TikTok Shop brings all kinds of possible scenarios and questions: How will this affect Amazon and other large marketplaces? How will consumers approach shopping on this new platform? How will this impact the current social commerce playground?

During the peak of COVID-19, businesses worldwide experienced the pandemic's toll with either sky-rocketing growth or heartbreaking closures. The structure of national lockdowns and social restrictions meant that businesses, especially in retail, that had a primarily online business model thrived, gaining in revenue and hiring staff to meet their new demands. By early 2022 in the US, e-commerce transactions, as a whole, increased by 55% during the pandemic, increasing spending by $609 billion. Online businesses, marketplaces and web shops on the receiving end were growing exponentially. It seemed like this trend would continue upward as economies recovered and social restrictions eased.

Despite slow performance expectations for Black Friday 2022, retailers and marketplaces around the globe proved once again how well a shopping event like Black Friday can do - even in the face of record-breaking inflation, energy and food costs. The small and medium tech and domestic products categories, such as TVs, toasters and headphones, showed the largest price drops while consumers wanting to make good use of the discounts arrived in full force with their wallets in hand. Results in the US showed a 2.3% increase in online sales compared to 2021. In the Netherlands, data from credit card translations and online sales showed a 12% increase in purchases while spending increased overall by 30% in the week leading up to Black Friday.

Reincarnating the shoe - that’s what some global brands in footwear are attempting to do with sustainability’s latest solution to a mounting climate change problem. A circular economy refers to an ecosystem where fashion is designed with its end-of-life state being top-of-mind. Circular fashion and footwear are designed specifically to be recycled into new items made from the old. From the individual fibres of a t-shirt to the type of glue that binds shoe parts together, circular fashion is dedicated to reimagining how garments are made to avoid deeper damage to the planet and its resources.

There is something to be said about a brand or retailer and their respective leaders wanting to improve their impact on the planet. As we’ve known and seen for the last five decades, it would be easy and mostly inconspicuous for a brand to simply continue the production, manufacturing and distribution tactics that are harmful to the environment. Up until recently, choosing sustainable operations within a business has been viewed as optional or as lacking demand from consumers.

When you think about all the times you received a gift that ended up in your storage cupboard for a few years, here’s a statistic that is sure to shock you: Each year, the UK spends approximately £700 million on unwanted gifts and about £42 million of that winds up in landfills. You may have thought about using that gift you received a few Christmases ago, but you can’t quite put your finger on when or how. Or, perhaps you’ve outgrown a beautiful leather bag from a previous season that’s collecting dust.

With falling profits, rising inflation and bloated overhead costs, the world of retail and eCommerce is experiencing one of its biggest challenges since the 2008 global recession. Wall Street reported that of the 79 large retailers that shared their financials during the period of 1 April - 23 May, 59% of them reported a decrease in consensus revenue for 2022 and 71% estimated a decrease in earnings for 2023. During the same period, the S&P Retail Composite Index fell 24.1%. Either directly or indirectly, inflation affects everyone and everything that involves monetary exchanges, but two of the most impacted arenas are production and consumption.

You may have heard the terms “Generation Z” and “Millennials” as a way to describe a certain age group, however, the terms are also being used to describe a certain trend, be it in the change in spending habits or behaviours. As e-commerce continues to mature and brick-and-mortar stores are repositioning themselves, and finding creative ways to remain relevant, Gen Z is ushering in a new era of shopping for the world of retail.

In 2019, as a retailer, a D2C brand, or a pricing expert; if you heard the statistic that, in 2022, 64% of consumers will make regular purchases directly from brands, you’d likely wonder what could possibly take place in between those short years for D2C shopping to become the majority choice for consumers. Direct-to-consumer, commonly called D2C, has jumped leaps and bounds in the last few years thanks to the traditional relationship between brand and retailer experiencing a reckoning with COVID-19 lockdowns and closures that spanned two years.

The line between creative inspiration and infringement can be thin, dotted, or invisible at times. This was one of the lessons that Adidas had to learn this month when it lost its $8 million lawsuit against American fashion label Thom Browne over the use of parallel stripes in their designs. The German sportswear giant, who filed the lawsuit in 2021 saying that Thom Browne’s use of the stripes infringed on their trademark logo, believed that the use of the striped design was “confusingly similar” to the one presented in their logo. In 2020, global fashion brand Zara was sued by a smaller luxury label, Amiri, for copying a design of jeans without permission to use the design that included pleated leather panelling and zippers around the knee; after which the two brands decided to settle. And, more recently, French luxury brand Hermes has sued NFT artist Mason Rothschild for creating and selling NFT digital images of their famous Birkin bag, saying that the name of his work, entitled “MetaBirkin”, appropriated the Birkin trademark.

Consumers who enjoy shopping from the beauty category have long been used to two main pillars to choose from: Luxury brands like Dior or Yves Saint Laurent, and drug store brands like Revlon, Essence and Catrice which are found in pharmacies. Recently, a third pillar, made up of new-age makeup and skincare companies such as Drunk Elephant or Fenty Skin, has arisen and shown intimidating potential to the status quo within beauty. However, alongside the wave of new beauty brands aiming to disrupt the industry with reformed ingredients and packaging policies, there has also been an increase in the number of famous actors, singers and social media influencers who have released beauty products and skincare lines, overwhelming the industry as a whole. It begs the question of if there is enough space for all of them to thrive. It also takes us to another point: Do we really need another celebrity beauty product? How are these new beauty brands different? And, are long-standing luxury brands affected by the hype about indie brands? Here is a look at how the world of beauty is doing in 2023 and beyond.

Consumers today insist on making the retailer come to them, online or offline, flipping this long-standing relationship on its head. To survive this new dynamic, a brand or retailer must approach multi-channel pricing to prioritize growth, profit, and customer loyalty. Today, the average consumer uses just under six channels or touchpoints to make a purchase: mobile, PC, and in-store. In 2008, that number was only two.

After its first introduction in 2021, followed by some delays in implementation, the EU’s Price Indication Directive (PID) is being implemented across the e-commerce and retail landscape throughout European member states including the Netherlands, Italy, Greece, Poland, and others. However, some countries have expressed concern about how the PID will be implemented, considering how vast and segmented the retail industry has become.

Price is the number one profit driver out of the seven Ps of marketing. However, it is often the most overlooked and misunderstood pillar among many brands and enterprises. The first official price tag on a product appeared in 1861 after it became frowned upon for consumers to haggle and negotiate the price of an item - and what a journey the price tag has been on since then.

Isn’t it a scary thought that 75% of S&P 500 incumbents will no longer be listed on the index by 2027? Due to slow or nonexistent evolvement, Standard & Poor’s data show that the evolution of corporate success has been dwindling for more than 50 years, stipulating that the average lifetime of an enterprise has decreased from 61 years in 1958 to just 18 years in 2011. Adaption and evolution are pertinent to the success of any enterprise, and no case of this being true is larger than the digitizat