Amazon added influencer videos to this year’s Prime Day sales event covering a wide range of product categories. We tuned in to Prime Day Live segments Tuesday on LED light bulbs and headphones, and both experienced technical glitches, with videos cutting out midstream. The shoppable segments were informal and casual: Influencer BMAC went off screen in search of a pair of earbuds and then found them in another location. Viewers could react to the content in running text commentary to the right of the video and click a tab to follow the influencers; a running count showed the percentage of items sold in a promotion. EMarketer analyst Jeremy Goldman blogged Monday that Amazon booked event spaces in the weeks leading up to the two-day sale and “loaded them with goods that would be on sale on Prime Day.” Amazon invited participants in its Amazon Influencer Program to visit “creator houses” in Los Angeles, New York and Austin to produce content, Goldman said, and for creators who also sell on Amazon, the company conducted two webinars on best practices to "optimize Prime Day revenue." Goldman cited Numerator figures saying the average Prime Day order value dropped 8.5% last year from two years prior, saying, “The novelty is wearing off -- which could be one reason Amazon is turning to influencers to reinvigorate the event.” Influencers are growing in importance to the typical consumer, he said, saying in Q4, the number of minutes of influencer-created content on Facebook and YouTube was up 7% vs. the prior year. That’s important, he said, because 68% of those who watch YouTube influencer videos recall the brands mentioned, and 86% have purchased, or would consider purchasing, a product endorsed by an influencer.

U.S. e-commerce sales will top $1 trillion this year, up 9.4% from 2021, eMarketer said Friday. By 2026, one in five dollars spent on retail will come from e-commerce channels vs. 15% this year, said the research firm. Amazon is projected to have 37.8% ($400 billion) of all 2021 digital sales, more than the next 14 biggest e-commerce retailers combined, it said.

Sanity, with an investment from Shopify, announced an integration with Shopify’s Hydrogen framework that will give Shopify merchants a way to enhance shopping experiences with product and brand content. Merchants using the Sanity Connect for Shopify app will be able to build custom storefronts on Shopify, deploy product stories with rich media, embed product content on external channels, enable one-click ordering anywhere on a website and launch promotions on email and social media, the companies said Tuesday. Sanity is the first content management system partner to launch an app for Shopify’s Hydrogen commerce framework. The investment amount wasn't disclosed.

Buy now, pay later (BNPL) usage has exploded in the U.S., blending the flexibility of credit, short repayment terms and app-based shopping into an easy-to-use experience, reported eMarketer Monday. But investor and regulatory scrutiny, increased competition and a “pending recession” are putting BNPL providers at risk, said analyst David Morris. By platform, Klarna has 34.8 million users, Afterpay has 20 million and Affirm, 14 million, said Insider Intelligence data. Newer entrants -- Block, PayPal and Apple -- are expanding the market through larger user bases, increasing competitive pressure, Morris said. In another report, eMarketer said Amazon’s competitors will take in $5.2 billion over the two-day Prime Day period, July 12-13, up 17.8% from Prime Day last year. That’s 45.9% more in sales vs. an average shopping day, said analyst Sara Lebow, noting competitors ratchet up their marketing to take advantage of consumers' spending mood during the high-profile sales event. Amazon, meanwhile, is expected to gross $7.8 billion, a 16.7% bump from 2021, she said. Major retailers, including Target, will likely leverage steep markdowns on overstocked items, such as furniture and consumer electronics, she said, while direct-to-consumer brands can benefit from messaging around supporting small businesses instead of the e-commerce giant.

The former owner of e-commerce platform CafePress will pay $500,000 to settle allegations it failed to “secure consumers’ sensitive personal data and covered up a major breach” in 2019, the FTC said Friday, finalizing an order announced in March (see 2203150081). The commission voted 5-0 to finalize orders with Residual Pumpkin, the former owner of CafePress, and PlanetArt, which bought CafePress in 2020. The agreement requires PlanetArt to bolster its data security and requires the former owner to pay $500,000 to compensate small businesses affected by the breach.

Inventory surpluses at large retailers are sparking widespread discounts for U.S. e-commerce shoppers, and 49% of consumers, including 60% of millennials, plan to buy more online in the next six months because of these trends, a Pitney Bowes survey found. The company hired Morning Consult to canvass 2,000 online shoppers weekly for the past month, finding 15% of consumers are “unlikely to buy discounted items because they are cutting back on spending” amid record-high inflation, it said. Overstocks and markdowns will affect retail profitability, “but also create new openings to sell as a large portion of consumers seek out deals -- further aided by the return of Prime Day and other mid-year promotions,” said Vijay Ramachandran, Pitney Bowes vice president-market strategy, global e-commerce. The survey also found “a growing number of consumers cutting back on retail spending altogether as they react to record inflation and gas prices, and rising interest rates,” he said.

Retail back-to-school (BTS) spending will advance at less than a percentage point to $67.5 billion this year vs. 14% in 2021, said a Tuesday eMarketer report. E-commerce BTS spend will grow 6.8% to $28.2 billion vs. 10.2% growth last year, it said. For the year, U.S. e-commerce sales are expected to reach $1.05 trillion, up 9.4% from 2021, said the report. For the Cyber Five shopping days, eMarketer predicts Thanksgiving Day digital spending of $5.9 billion, $9.9 billion on Black Friday, $5.5 billion on Small Business Saturday, $5.2 billion on Cyber Sunday and $12.2 billion on Cyber Monday. Total retail sales are projected at $6.9 trillion for 2022 on a healthy job market, low unemployment and higher wages, said eMarketer. It forecasts mobile commerce sales will grow 13.6% to $689 billion for the year. Amazon had 37.8% of digital shoppers in 2021, spending $397.4 billion, followed by Walmart (6%, $66.5 billion), Apple (3.9%, $40.8 billion), eBay (3.5%, $36.7 billion), Target (2.1%, $22.1 billion), Home Depot (2.1%, $21.7 billion) and Best Buy (1.6%, $17.1 billion). Direct-to-consumer e-commerce sales for established brands will reach $117.5 billion this year, eMarketer said. Habits consumers built over the past years “have taken root,” and while eMarketer expects e-commerce to grow its share of overall retail sales this year, “we do anticipate growth to slow in some discretionary categories” including apparel, toys and hobbies, furniture and home furnishings. Some 238.1 million people in the U.S. 14 and older will browse or research products on the internet this year, and 90% of that group will buy something via digital means at least once in 2022, it said. About 65% of the population are mobile shoppers; the percentage will grow to 69% by 2026, it said.

Walmart will be the exclusive retailer to allow streamers to buy featured products fulfilled by Walmart directly on the Roku platform “at the time of inspiration,” the companies announced Thursday. Viewers press “OK” with the remote on a shoppable ad and proceed to checkout with their payment details pre-populated from the Roku Pay payments platform. If customers don't have a Roku Pay account, they will be prompted to enter payment information on the TV, a Roku spokeswoman emailed. The companies plan to begin testing with select Roku upfront advertisers that sell in Walmart by year end, the spokeswoman said. “We’re working to connect with customers where they are already spending time, shortening the distance from discovery and inspiration to purchase,” said William White, chief marketing officer, Walmart. White said Walmart, working with Roku, is the first first-to-market retailer to bring customers “a new shoppable experience.” "In this pilot, Walmart products will be available from commercials only," the spokeswoman said, responding to our question on whether products would be available for purchase from both commercials and content. OneView, Roku’s ad-buying platform for TV streaming, will have the capability to activate and measure shoppable ads, and marketers can use Roku Brand Studio to design custom creative and branded content built for TV streaming and shopping, the companies said. Roku’s advertising tech stack will bring targeting, optimization, and measurement to the commerce partnership, the companies said.

Even in an uncertain economy, “every business continues to prioritize its digital investment,” said Anil Chakravarthy, Adobe president-digital experience, on an earnings call Thursday for fiscal Q2 ended June 3. June’s Adobe digital index report, which leverages “trillions of data points” from Adobe analytics, found consumers spent a billion dollars more online in May than in April, he said. Shoppers year to date have spent more than $377 billion online, “roughly 9% more than the same period last year,” he said.

Amazon Fashion launched a virtual try-on experience for shoe shopping Thursday. The interactive Virtual Try-On Shoes mobile experience uses augmented reality to help customers visualize how they will look wearing a pair of shoes in varying colors and angles, it said. Participating brands include New Balance, adidas, Reebok, Puma, Superga, Lacoste, Asics and Saucony. Shoppers click a virtual try-on button in the Amazon mobile app, point their smartphone's camera at their feet and images of the shoes are superimposed over the shoes they’re wearing. We found mixed results in a brief audition of the AR technology. While viewing Reebok sneakers, we found white shoes to look natural, while a black version of the same shoe looked artificial. A different black version of the same shoe style effectively showed alternating fabric and leather textures. A pink version looked cartoonish. Digital artifacts appeared in most renderings, showing as jagged lines between our jeans and the start of the shoe. A glitch on an adidas shoe presented the left shoe in white, the right shoe in gray. We noticed our iPhone was warm after a few minutes of taxing processor usage.