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Walmart will reportedly roll out a retail pay-by-bank offering in 2025 through a tie-up with Fiserv. And Hilton launched hotel loyalty debit cards in the UK that let cardholders make A2A payments through the cards. Globally, total A2A payment transaction volume will reach $186 billion in 2029, up from $60 billion in 2024, per ACI Worldwide.

Walmart introduced The Nuevolution Project, a collection of clothing and home products from Hispanic creators. In the beverage industry, Tequila Cazadores and Caf茅 Bustelo collaborated on specialty coffee cocktails, while Modelo created a "One-in-Six Pack" to celebrate Hispanic creativity and perseverance.

This could make consumers more comfortable with using these payments, increasing adoption, especially as big names like Walmart start to offer the payment method. Increases digital wallet competition. Given it鈥檚 now easier to switch between different providers, digital wallets will now have to work harder to keep their users.

While the lion鈥檚 share of that money will go to Amazon鈥攚ith Walmart as a distant second鈥攔etailers that can offer brands the ability to reach new or incremental audiences, access their first-party data, and deliver strong return on ad spend have a better chance of standing out in a crowded field.

I mean, Walmart has the money to take these kinds of risks. Every time we put this list together, Arielle, Becky, and I are like, "We don't want to put Amazon and Walmart at the top. They're always at the top. They're always on the list."

The retail media frenzy has continued through 2024, with retailers like Costco, Wawa, and Saks launching networks, while others, like The Home Depot, Instacart, and Walmart, bolstered their networks to grow their share of ad dollars. With more options, advertisers are becoming more cautious about the networks they work with, focusing on those that can prove campaign success.

The acquisition also highlights the importance of retail media, where brands invest in advertising within retailer environments like Amazon, Walmart, and Target to gain better visibility. Publicis also sees this acquisition as an opportunity to further expand its presence in retail media networks (RMNs), a rapidly growing sector projected to reach$140 billion in ad spending this year.

Walmart and Target gained relatively greater sales participation from their October events than Amazon, per Numerator, as they generated higher consideration from shoppers buying for the holidays. The verdict is still out on the broader impact of October sales events. They don鈥檛 appear to have shifted a significant share of holiday sales into October.

For a small number of retailers like Walmart and Amazon, that value will be scale. But for most other retailers, factors like regional loyalty, demographic specificity, and the ability to offer unique insights via first-party data, will be differentiators. 鈥淚t鈥檚 important to make sure that you鈥檙e ready to present that in a clearly articulated way,鈥� Marzano said.

Now, retail clinic operators such as CVS, Walgreens, and Walmart are reducing their physical footprints, scaling back their primary care endeavors, or closing altogether. On the grocery side, increased store traffic at locations with clinics compared with sites lacking them could be attributed to those regional chains having small overall footprints, per Placer.ai.

Retail media networks, led by platforms like Walmart Connect, are also incorporating non-endemic advertisers. This strategy uses first-party data to offer targeted ads beyond traditional product catalogs, enhancing revenue opportunities and future-proofing advertising strategies.

Walmart has made its store more accessible, offering low-sensory shopping times during the 2023 holiday season for customers sensitive to music and light in-store, said our analyst Sarah Marzano. The No. 1 reason respondents to a CivicScience survey said they鈥檇 shop online this holiday season was to avoid crowds. 2. Offering excessive discounting.

We're talking about Walmart trying a new approach to combat retail theft. This is an article written by our senior retail analyst, Zak Stambor. In it, he notes that Walmart is testing technology in its stores that lets workers use their cell phones to open locked cases housing items like deodorants and baby formula. This is a note from Bloomberg.

Following a limited test across 25 stores in April 2023, Walmart has steadily increased its advertiser-funded in-store demo and sampling program. Walmart has said it is experimenting with bridging physical and digital, using QR codes at demo stations to link shoppers to digital product discovery pages and list-building capabilities.

Walmart. Paul Verna (20:02):. Or Walmart. Suzy Davidkhanian (20:02):. I think those guys are too big. I think that the government, Chinese government's not... And I think that Nordstrom is trying to go private is also a really big... I don't know that TikTok shop could sell to another American retailer. Jasmine Enberg (20:16):. Well, so to Paul's point, I think the TikTok brand is strong enough.

鈥淭his usually pushes Walmart, Target, and others to launch sales around the same time,鈥� Canaves said. Newer ecommerce players such as Temu and TikTok Shop are fueling tougher competition for sales of low-cost items. Waning consumer confidence will drive category growth for smaller-ticket items.

Or the Walmart "Jingle Bell Love" movie or the "Add to Heart" romcom. Those were extremely unsubtle, and this is-. Sara Lebow (09:37):. What are we talking about? Arielle Feger (09:42):. Sara's face. She just got so upset. That was like Walmart shoppable media push. Zak Stambor (09:45):. Yeah. Rachel Wolff (09:46):. And doesn't Chick-fil-A have its own content? Arielle Feger (09:48):.

Unlike a similar shoppable initiative between Walmart and Roku, which required watchers to pause their shows to make a purchase from their TVs, Paramount鈥檚 goal is to offer a 鈥渃omplete lack of friction,鈥� Halley told CNBC, and make the act of browsing (or purchasing) an extension of viewers鈥� existing behaviors.

As Walmart demonstrates with its AR showrooms, the next step will be integrating conversational AI into these immersive environments. Shoppers may interact with AI assistants within virtual storefronts, getting real-time advice as they virtually try on clothes or arrange furniture in digital homes. What does this mean for marketers?

A more competitive market has knocked some virtual care players out, such as Walmart Health and Optum earlier this year. And it鈥檚 caused the stock price of legacy players like Teladoc (down ~60% year to date) and Amwell (down ~68%) to nosedive. Yet other companies are adding capabilities to their telehealth platforms. Startup Fabric recently acquired Walmart鈥檚 telehealth business, MeMD.

Why it matters: The retail media landscape is crowded, making it difficult for smaller networks to stand out among the giants like Amazon and Walmart. But Thrive Market and Faire have niche audiences, which could help them differentiate themselves in the competition for ad dollars. This was originally featured in the Retail Media Weekly newsletter.

At number seven, we have Walmart. Arielle, why is Walmart on here? Arielle Feger (03:14):. I mean, Walmart's just doing pretty well, which it's not necessarily surprising, but I think it is something that a lot of retailers are struggling. It's capitalizing on consumers looking for value.

Our take: While Kroger鈥檚 price-cutting efforts are winning over consumers, it faces a difficult operating environment鈥攏ot least due to fierce competition from Walmart and Amazon, the latter of which is also cutting prices to sharpen its appeal to cost-sensitive shoppers.

And then also big box folks like Walmart, Walmart pharmacy customers, you also noting in an article that they can now add prescription medication to same-day delivery orders. (11:27):. And so folks, as well as the discount retailers, Dollar General, folks like that where people can buy some of the groceries they would've bought inside of these pharmacies, they will get them there.

Walmart convened a Creator Upfront in October. Creators from various industries presented their content and strategies to a group of advertisers. Amazon has taken minority stake in Spotter. The latter is a company that supports creator businesses through capital, community, and AI tools. Amazon has joined forces with Meta, TikTok, Snap, and Pinterest.