Commerce

Three years after launching a retail media network, specialty food retailer The Fresh Market has a print magazine and a new live-stream shopping program.

Hey! This is James Hercher, AdExchanger’s senior editor and commerce industry beat reporter. Welcome to the inaugural dispatch of AdExchanger’s Commerce Newsletter.

The digital commerce agency Blue Wheel and ecommerce marketplace agency Retail Bloom announced their merger on Tuesday. Founded in the metro Detroit area in 2011 and 2015, respectively, Blue Wheel and Retail Bloom will unite under the Blue Wheel banner going forward.

Helping usher Laura Mercier into the metaverse has been one of Salima Popatia’s first projects as Orveon Global’s chief digital officer. But the brand’s December launch of a virtual store is only the beginning of its metaverse journey.

In 2022, retail media grew to include practically any business with a first-party identity graph, purchase data and a claim to ears or eyeballs. Despite the buzz, however, retail media has a long way to go before the category is mature.

Meta Advantage+ is not a new streaming service, despite the “plus.” And it’s not a healthcare plan, though it sounds like one. It’s Meta’s version of a first-party data-based ad platform locked inside the blackest black box any Facebook advertiser has ever known.

Lost in the Sturm und Drang of Q4 (Q for quarantine) 2020, Google introduced a beta program called Performance Max, its first ad product spanning all Google-owned media. Fast-forward to today, and Performance Max has quietly become the fastest growing and potentially most controversial product in the Google portfolio.

As any stateside ’90s kid can attest, backpack brand JanSport reigned supreme in the late ’90s and 2000s. Now, what’s old is new again. Fueled in part by Gen Z’s nostalgia for decades past, “we’ve resurged as America’s number-one backpack,” said Monica Rigali, JanSport’s vice president of global brand management.

The Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday online shopping bonanza was in full effect this year. But it’s hard to make judgements about whether this season is helping buoy retailers and brands as in years past

Advertisers are shifting their holiday campaign strategies this Black Friday and Cyber Week, moving down the funnel in response to economic headwinds. And so we asked the experts: How are inflationary and recessionary worries impacting media plans around Black Friday and Cyber Week?