While many of us remember the days when doorbells signaled more than just another delivery and hashtags were called pound signs, a growing part of the population will never know life before globalized ecommerce and social media. Gen Z grew up with the rise of Amazon and TikTok, two companies that completely altered consumer behavior, which makes their recently announced partnership an exceptionally unique opportunity for businesses to target this demographic.

With insights from 4,500 shoppers in The USA, The UK, the Netherlands, Germany, and France, this report uncovers unique insights on marketplace adoption, usage, and preferences. Marketplaces are more than a sales channel— they’re where shopping begins. In our Marketplace Shopping Behavior Report 2025, we reveal how online marketplaces are now the #1 starting point for online consumers’ shopping journeys. 

Amazon says the power of AI is leading to significant shifts in its business. The tech giant uses AI in everything from customer assistance and summarizing customer reviews to fit recommendations and rewriting product titles on the fly. Doug Herrington, CEO of Amazon Worldwide Stores, said AI is among the biggest technological revolutions.

“AI is becoming transformative for our business, and we really haven’t had a technology revolution as large as this since the start of the internet,” Herrington said during his keynote session at NRF on Sunday. “We had some big ones roll through. I think the shift to mobile was very large, the rise of the social platforms was quite large, but nothing as large or as extensible as this.”

Amazon is allowing major retailers to use Amazon Advertising to run sponsored ads on their own websites. Amazon, the third-largest digital advertising platform behind Alphabet and Meta, is extending its ad technology to other retailers – a move that could significantly reshape the retail media landscape.

Amazon’s new Retail Ad Service allows U.S. retailers to implement Amazon’s sophisticated ad targeting and measurement tools on their own websites, marking another instance of Amazon commercializing its internal technology, similar to AWS and Buy with Prime.

This holiday shopping season promises to be another marathon for e-commerce brands, filled with the expected twists and turns that a three-month shopping period brings. Although, while an extended shopping period might sound like good news for e-commerce brands wanting to capitalize on the season, one already prominent thorn in the side threatens to dampen the mood: inexpensive online marketplaces.

In the face of a global downturn in the luxury market, identifying new avenues for innovation has become a pivotal challenge for leading luxury brands. China’s luxury market is transforming, characterized by the rise of new consumers, accelerated digitalization, and shifting consumption patterns, each having a significant impact on the industry. As the birthplace of fashion trends in China, Xiaohongshu has emerged as the go-to social media platform for brands looking to establish a foothold in the Chinese market, engage in meaningful conversations with consumers, and drive growth.

Amazon, in its quest for greater efficiency, has developed new systems to shave seconds off each package delivery and to help customers make faster buying choices, even for new product types that they may know little about. The company announced Wednesday it has created spotlights within its trucks to guide delivery people to packages for each stop along a route.

The technology, which Amazon is calling Vision Assisted Package Retrieval, works by shining a green light on packages so that the deliverer does not have to waste precious seconds reading labels.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed ahead of Amazon Prime Day, a new AI feature from the e-commerce giant may help you score everything you want, even the items you don’t yet know you want to buy. Amazon announced this week that customers will have a more personalized experience when shopping by employing large language models (LLMs) to match individual preferences and provide more relevant product information.