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

Searching for an item on the internet isn’t what it used to be, mostly because we’re all ditching typing fragments and scrolling endlessly, thanks to AI. Nowadays, a shopper can simply ask for “the best fall jacket under $150” or a “cozy but modern sofa” and get precisely what they mean.

 made by Google to AI tools like Amazon’s Lens Live are in many ways reshaping the convenience of search and shopping online and making this shift possible. Amazon recently dropped 

—a visual search tool that lets you point your camera at stuff and instantly get product matches plus commentary from Rufus, its AI shopping assistant.

AI tools like Amazon Lens and Google Shopping, among others, act as personal shoppers, weaving together context, preferences, and recommendations in natural conversation, transforming search from a chore to a chat that coughs up what you’re looking for on the first try.

“The journey for search has always been to really ensure that the consumer is getting what they need based on their queries,” Vivek Pandya, lead analyst at Adobe Digital Insights, told Retail Brew. “What we’re now seeing is an evolution of the search happening almost at a prompt level. Where the prompt—it’s really taking in much more context, almost than even the searches.”

“A search is just a product or some item that you’re looking for. Maybe that’s the traditional path we’ve thought about in terms of a search query, but when we think about a Gen AI prompt, it’s filled with a lot more context,” Pandya added.

And companies like Google and Amazon are both steering directly into this frame of shopping by adapting their search and shopping experiences and embedding AI tools they’ve built in-house. Google, for instance, has upgraded its shopping experience with new AI features including a virtual try-on tool, agentic checkout, and AI-powered product discovery within AI Mode. It has also introduced its Search Generative Experience (SGE), which uses generative AI to provide more conversational and context-rich responses to shopping queries.

Meanwhile, Amazon’s recent AI upgrades include a suite of new tools like Lens Live for real-time visual search, personalized AI Shopping Guides, and its interactive Rufus AI assistant.

Another marker that AI is truly transforming the consumer journey is 

 from AI platforms has seen a big upswing recently. Per Adobe data, traffic from generative AI-powered links to retail websites has surged up 4,700% in July.

“Consumers are much more comfortable giving [Generative AI] a lot more information to give background on what consumers need,” Pandya said. “And so then we get these very sophisticated, advanced responses from the Gen AI platform. That is where we see Gen AI really setting a new bar in terms of whatever journey the consumer is on to get the goods they need.”

“So in a way, search has to evolve to meet that new world we’re in, and how it can rationalize the traditional experience that it’s provided consumers with what they’ve come to expect based on Gen AI prompts, and that the responses it’s getting there,” Pandya added.

From a brand’s perspective executives are cautiously optimistic and measured about the evolution of product search with AI. Dibs Beauty CEO Jeff Lee 

 in July that there is still no clear winner when it comes to search, not even Google: “We haven’t found a true winner yet, and I think it’ll be some time before we find that one great solution that replaces all search for customers discovering brands.”

Looks like the prompt for this year is: big year of change for online shopping.

Why the shopping search function will be rebuilt because of AI

AI tools are becoming the new personal shoppers, stitching context, preferences, and product recommendations into one conversation. 

The holiday rush may still be weeks away, but retailers are in full holiday hustle mode. Fittingly, that theme was front and center at Retail Brew’s in-person gathering in July.

“Rewiring Retail: Mastering Data, Inventory, and the Online Customer Experience” in New York City saw top retail executives bring their A-game with hot takes for the upcoming holiday season. Here are some of the top takeaways from our chats with some of the best speakers in the business.

 that while shoppers are still spending, the consumer is reeling under pressure.

According to Maggie Barnett, COO of ShipHero, brands are going to invest toward their mainline essentials this holiday season. “We’re going to have a lot of products, but again, it’s going to be a limited run,” Barnett told Retail Brew. “We’re going to stick to core SKUs. There’s not going to be a lot of the outlier SKUs.”

Keeping costs down: ‘It’s not about UPS, FedEx, DHL anymore.’

Barnett said we’re not going to see “fully stocked shelves” this time around as inventory for Q4 is running light.

“We’re trying to get folks to get their inventory [in] early, but people are waiting till the last minute,” Barnett said. Retailers don’t want to gamble on experimental products that might just sit on shelves in January.

Barnett also flagged the growing role of regional carriers, as brands zero in on cost cutting with surgical precision: “We’re going to see a lot of regional carriers. I know that’s more to do with the last mile versus actually in-store retail. However, we’re going to see the regional carriers. It’s just not about UPS, FedEx, DHL anymore.”

Meanwhile, for health tracker ring company Oura’s VP of Global Retail Jeremiah Linder, this holiday season will be like none other as Oura sets up overseas channels to sell across parts of Europe and Australia for the first time.

“Every year, our holiday season is a new opportunity for growth,” Linder said. “We’ve also got totally different distribution versus last year in holiday.”

“That means we’re planning for businesses that this is our first holiday in Germany retail, our first holiday in Australia retail. We’ve got to get really tight with our planning now. We’ve already got inventory being built to get us ready for that holiday season,” Linder said.

Pointing to consumer sentiment, Linder struck an optimistic tone: “We expect that consumers will be a little bit more deal seeking, waiting for that period of Black Friday–Cyber Monday and into December to really commit their dollars, given some of the macroenvironment of tariffs, inflation.”

Collaboration is key to inventory forecasting this holiday season

For months, brands have wrestled with how much inventory is really enough for the holidays.

Linder said Oura relies on its retail partners to develop a “collaborative” inventory forecast. “I think that’s important so that if we miss we know that we missed together—whether that’s overshooting forecast or under shooting,” he added. “But by collaborating, we can get a sense of what their expectations are for holiday, what our expectations are, and then we can meet in the middle.”

Spice supplier Burlap & Barrel’s Co-CEO and Co-founder Ori Zohar agreed, saying that being a “good partner” always pays off.

“We are a really good partner to our partner farmers,” Zohar said. “We pay them more, we pay on time, we pay ahead of schedule. And so we’ve been really building this trusted relationship where we have this first right to the best quality that they have. Because of that, we feel like we’re in a really good position where we have exactly the inventory we need, and we’re really set up to keep growing through holidays this year.”

Overall, Zohar said brands are feeling a sense of turmoil ahead of the holidays.

“With all the political news and global news, we know that there’s a lot of displacement happening,” Zohar said. “We’re [a] more nimble company—it’s able to bob, and weave, and pivot, and figure out how to show up in the market. We’re working really hard to be ready, be on the balls of our toes to be able to react to whatever comes down our way.”

Dibs Beauty CEO speaking on a panel at Retail Brew's Retail Rewired event in NYC

Holiday season momentum was impossible to miss at Retail Brew’s event

Core SKUs, keeping costs tight, and leaning on collaboration, especially for inventory forecasting.

While many believe August is a month when not much of anything happens, that may not be the case for Shopify customers, who spent their wallet share on creating art, cleaning up, and upgrading for fall.

Orders for art, craft, and DIY essentials like craft sets, doll-making kits, felting pads and mats, and art and drafting tables jumped 483%, 251%, 108%, and 63%, respectively in August, according to data shared first with Retail Brew.

With kids heading back to school, some shoppers decided to focus on tidying up and organizing their spaces before fall. August orders for upright steam mops, lawn sweepers, and brooms went up 187%, 115%, and 81%, respectively, across Shopify stores.

Back-to-school season also struck a chord with musicians, with instruments being in high demand, as students returned to bands and orchestras. Shoppers shelled out to buy synthesizer keyboards (up 86%), metronomes (up 71%), baritone saxophones (up 62%), and acoustic drum kits (up 44%). Bass flutes (up 44%), bass trombones (up 29%), and trumpets (up 20%) also saw a moderate spike in orders.

Back-to-school season isn’t just about books—it’s also about bragging rights. Chasing recognition means orders for award ribbons and trophies, which jumped 31% and 21%, respectively.

 Meanwhile, cold-weather fashion heated up, with several wardrobe staples trending this season. Orders for bomber jackets (up 76%), sweaters (up 65%), sweatshirts (up 56%), leggings (up 56%), trench coats (up 40%), and overcoats (up 33%) all rose in August.

Football season also rallied students together—on the field as players, on the sidelines as cheerleaders, or in the stands as loyal fans. No surprises then that shoppers bought cheerleading pom poms (up 40%), American football girdles (up 34%), and football gloves (up 29%).

With baking season on the horizon, some sweet staples were also flying off shelves. Orders for pie and pastry fillings (up 52%), granulated sugar (up 29%) and bread and pastry dough (up 28%) all trended upward.

Shopify shoppers went all out for crafting, household cleaning, and jackets and sweaters in August

Shopify’s August data showed a spike in orders for craft sets, doll-making kits, bomber jackets and cleaning tools like upright steam mops.

Traffic from generative AI-powered links to retail websites has surged in recent months, up 4,700% in July, according to the latest data from Adobe.

“We’re seeing the momentum increase each month; we’re seeing the growth continue to scale,” Vivek Pandya, lead analyst at Adobe Digital Insights, told Retail Brew. The surge, Pandya added, is being driven by consumer trust in the links shared by generative AI-powered platforms like Claude, Perplexity, and ChatGPT, among others being tracked by Adobe.

“We also ran a survey—in addition to the Adobe analytics platform data that’s informing the traffic spikes that we’re observing—and there, the consumers are saying that they really trust the links we see,” he said. “More than 90% of them trust the responses they’re given from these LLM [large language models] and that’s what’s really driving the surge.”

Adobe spotted the first big wave of generative AI-driven traffic to US retail sites during the holiday season. In 2024, from Nov. 1 to Dec. 31, clicks from AI sources jumped 1,300% YoY—and on Cyber Monday alone, visits spiked 1,950%. While still small compared with channels like paid search or email, the surge marks a significant shift. The data is based on Adobe’s analysis of the universe of chat services and AI-powered browser experiences.

​​Momentum carried into 2025 as generative AI traffic to retail websites rose 1,100% in January and 3,100% in April, compared to July 2024—the earliest point traffic was large enough to serve as a baseline.

Consumers using generative AI to shop online spend 32% more time on sites and view 10% more pages, another nugget of data from Adobe showed. Bounce rates from this traffic are also 27% lower.

“You have a very strategic, conscientious, research-focused user who’s exploring on the generative AI platforms their options, then getting links, then visiting the sites, then spending a stronger amount of time on the site,” Pandya added.

The path to purchase, or visits that turn into purchases, has also narrowed considerably for these users. In July, generative AI traffic was 23% less likely to convert—down from 49% in January and 38% in April.

Gen AI drives a 4,700% surge in traffic to shopping sites in the US

Users using generative AI to shop online tend to be research focused and are increasingly adding-to-cart as well.

Gen AI drives a 4,700% surge in traffic to shopping sites in the US: Adobe

Erin Cabrey

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

Mariam Naficy is co-founder and CEO of AI product creation platform Arcade, and previously founded and led creative goods marketplace Minted.

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

I founded a company named Arcade, a product creation platform where if you can dream it, you can have it. I connect creatively inspired shoppers with high-quality makers, and use AI to enable them to communicate via images. Consumers can use Arcade to customize or create their dream products and purchase them instantly.

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

It’s probably not clear how immersed I am in technology in my day-to-day life right now, much more so than when I was running Minted. I feel like I live in two completely different worlds. One minute, I’m on a call with an interior designer and we’re talking about how to create merchandise and bring it to market. And the next minute, I’m working closely with our AI team to brainstorm a pipeline that will solve an image generation problem, writing prompt appends that generate better outputs, or networking with engineers to learn about research papers or models we should know about. I’m living in a back and forth between the world of design and the cutting-edge application of AI to consumer experiences.

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

 My favorite project has been working on our artist models. Through a partnership with Minted, I partnered with artists that I knew from my Minted days, and with their permission, carefully trained models on their work. I curated the training data myself and created prompt appends to coax out the best outputs. It’s a fun intersection of using your merchant brain and then working with AI technologies to make sure beautiful design materializes.

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

Customization. With the advent of AI, it’s never been more possible to democratize customization for everyone—whether they think they have any design capabilities or not! With Arcade, we are bringing customized rugs and other home goods into the realm of affordability for customers.

Worst piece of advice you’ve received? 

“Stick to the original business plan.”

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

When I wasn’t studying, I would hang out in malls or shops in the Washington, D.C., area at 15—I was obsessed with fashion. I loved Commander Salamander in Georgetown, and I loved Benetton—the sweaters were such high quality. I loved going into the stores and seeing all the colors and touching the wool. The favorite Benetton product I bought was a celadon green cardigan with silver buttons…My favorite retail product today has to be Bitossi, the cult classic Italian ceramic art house. I was recently able to tour the 100-year-old archive of their work in Florence—it was a real honor. I recently ordered a custom Bitossi piece through Arcade for my home. It’s an abstract figure of a man on a horse and it captures the 1970s inspiration behind our interiors.

A portrait of co-founder and CEO of AI product creation platform Arcade, Mariam Naficy against a pink background.

Coworking with Mariam Naficy

She’s co-founder and CEO of Arcade. 

Instacart has appointed Etsy CEO Josh Silverman to its board of directors, the grocery delivery platform announced on Friday. Silverman, who has led Etsy since 2017, brings vast experience in e-commerce, marketplace dynamics, and consumer behavior—areas increasingly relevant to Instacart’s evolution from a delivery service to a broader retail tech platform.

“Josh is a proven marketplace innovator with a track record of scaling consumer platforms such as Etsy, Skype, and Evite,” said Instacart CEO Chris Rogers in a press statement. “His deep understanding of consumer technology, passion for empowering independent entrepreneurs, and commitment to sustainable growth make him an invaluable asset.”

In a statement, Silverman said he was honored to join Instacart at such a “pivotal moment” for the company. 

“Instacart has already transformed how millions of people shop for groceries, proving the power of technology to make everyday needs easier,” Silverman said.

Last week, Instacart parent Maplebear reported strong Q2 results. Revenue rose 11% to $914 million and gross transaction value (GTV) grew 11% YoY to $9.08 billion. Orders surged 17% to 82.7 million. Ad revenue climbed 12% YoY, driven by the expanded reach of the company’s digital advertising offerings.

“Our technology gives retailers an edge they simply couldn’t build on their own,” wrote the former CEO and new chair of the board at Instacart, Fidji Simo, in a 

Simo added that Instacart’s marketplace investments in unifying its platform and using AI to streamline onboarding have more than doubled its launch pace—rolling out more than 40 new retailer partner sites in the first half of 2025 alone, compared to 30 in all of 2024 and just over a dozen in 2023.

Last year, Instacart upgraded its tech in physical stores with 

Etsy CEO joins Instacart’s board

Josh Silverman previously served as CEO of Skype and Shopping.com, and was the co-founder of Evite, a platform for sending digital greeting cards.

Etsy CEO joins Instacart’s board as the platform evolves beyond grocery delivery 

, Amazon this week announced its latest bid to become a digital grocery powerhouse and compete with Walmart. Consumers can now purchase perishable grocery items through its same-day delivery service.

The service is now available to shoppers in 1,000 locations across the US, and the e-comm giant said that’ll expand to 2,300 by the end of the year. Perishable items include produce, dairy, meat, baked goods, and frozen offerings, which can also be ordered alongside any other Amazon products in the same cart.

The move could help Amazon, which has found muted success in the fresh grocery space, compete with its biggest 

, Walmart, which is the top digital grocery retailer in the US, per eMarketer. Walmart currently accounts for approximately 40% of US all online grocery sales, according to Brick Meets Click.

The efforts to win in online grocery come amid the segment’s burgeoning success, with penetration reaching a record 81 million, or 61% of households and US online grocery sales growing 26% YoY to $10 billion in July, Brick Meets Click reported this week. Delivery sales jumped 36% YoY to $4.3 billion, while ship-to-home sales increased 10% YoY to $1.6 billion.

Amazon said it uses a temperature-controlled fulfillment system for the perishable orders, which undergo a “six-point quality check” before they arrive at shoppers’ doors in the same insulated bags they’d receive for Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods deliveries. Delivery is free over $25 or $2.99 under $25 in most cities for Prime members, Amazon said, and $12.99 for non-Prime members.

The company tested the offering in locations like Phoenix, Arizona; Orlando, Florida; and Kansas City, Missouri, and has found shoppers use the same-day delivery service twice as often as those who don’t buy fresh food on the platform, and are increasingly turning to Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods as well, Doug Herrington, CEO of Worldwide Amazon Stores, said in a statement. The company also said strawberries beat Airpods as a top five seller on Amazon in these regions.

Amazon’s other recent efforts to expand its grocery biz include reorganizing its leadership. In 

, it tapped Whole Foods CEO Jason Buechel to serve as VP of worldwide grocery stores while also continuing to lead Whole Foods. And in June, Business Insider 

 Amazon was restructuring its leadership to organize Whole Foods more closely under Amazon’s operations.

Perishable groceries and home goods from Amazon