Having established itself as a delivery go-to for everything from local restaurant takeout to a 2am Taco Bell Crunchwrap, Uber Eats has been working to meet consumers’ CPG needs, like a blue Gatorade or a stick of deodorant delivered straight to their door. And with more grocery and convenience retailers on the app has come new advertising opportunities for these CPGs.

Uber formally debuted its dedicated advertising division in October 2022, and has amassed more than 400,000 advertisers with a projected annual advertising revenue of $650 million. On Uber Eats, that new advertising push includes CPG partnerships beyond banner ads, with newer offerings like sponsored items added in May and video ads introduced in June.

With its first-party consumer data collected from Eats and its rides business, Uber’s ad business has a competitive advantage over other delivery services, one of the main reasons Megan Ramm, Uber’s global director and head of CPG partnerships, joined the company last year from Snap’s CPG team, she told Retail Brew.

“As you look at the competitive nature of the digital landscape, there’s only a couple of players that really have those datasets,” she said. Ramm shared how the delivery giant is partnering with CPGs like PepsiCo to leverage this consumer data and striking a balance with the organic consumer shopping experience as the company grows its advertising biz.

Keep reading here.—EC

We may be knee-deep in spooky season, but EOY will be here before you know it. If your holiday revenue strategy still needs work, Listrak’s dynamic customer engagement platform has you covered.

Their e-commerce retail experts have rounded up the best holiday advice, prep tips, and must-dos that VIP retail players (think: Academy Sports, TOMS, vineyard vines) are using to make sure they’re on the ball this holiday season—and they’ve packed it all into their holiday resource center.

This resource center features bite-size videos (we’re talkin’ 5 minutes or less) and downloadable calendar guides that’ll have you set up for holiday success, including:

• making sure your emails actually land in inboxes
• keeping your SMS game on point
• mastering segmentation, personalization, loyalty, and design
• developing out-of-the-box ways to boost revenue

With these hot tips, you’ve got this holiday season in the bag.

Is your supply chain giving you trouble? Try building one yourself. That’s what Walmart is doing; it plans to break ground later this year on a $350 million milk processing and bottling facility in Valdosta, Georgia, which will serve 750+ Walmart stores and Sam’s Clubs.

This is Walmart’s second major foray into the dairy business. The company opened its first owned-and-operated processing plant in Fort Wayne, Indiana, back in 2018.

The 250,000-square-foot facility was controversial at the time. Some critics questioned whether Americans wanted a giant corporation “milking its cows.” To be fair, Walmart still isn’t in the business of milking cows. Both facilities are processing plants, not dairy farms, but concerns around market concentration remain.

Keep reading here.—AV

This holiday season, every time you arrange to pay off that expensive bag or new refrigerator with Affirm or Afterpay, you’ll be driving up the buy now, pay later (BNPL) numbers that Adobe Analytics predicts will hit a record high.

Inflation and high interest rates have left many consumers with little in the way of discretionary budgets, but Adobe predicted that one in five will likely use layaway to buy gifts for the holidays, and that online BNPL spending will be 17% higher than last year, hitting $17 billion in November and December.

“Consumers are very price conscious,” Adobe Digital Insights lead analyst Vivek Pandya told Bloomberg. “Because of inflation, we’re seeing their debt levels increase and their savings level decrease.”

It ain’t about the money: Still, inflation woes aren’t likely to completely dampen the holiday shopping spirit.

Keep reading here.—JS

The holidays are basically here, and that is the Super Bowl of retail.

Get ready for the sales crush by taking our Performance Under Pressure course with Alex Auerbach, senior director of wellness and development for the Toronto Raptors. He helps turn your stress into your superpower. Sign up now.