Far from being slowed down by COVID, the retail industry has grown rapidly over the last few years. Both brick-and-mortar and online commerce platforms have seen significant growth as companies continue to develop new products, new advertising channels, and new business tools.

After spending 2021 anxiously awaiting millions of tons of merchandise and materials trapped on cargo ships in deadlocked queues around the globe, retailers face an entirely new problem in 2022– swelling inventories in an economy where purchasing is trending downwards.

Across industries, nearly everyone agrees that if it hasn’t arrived yet, the recession is coming soon. The real question is, how long will this recession or set of recession-like conditions last? Does our current economic ride end in a hard or soft landing?

Last month, ecommerce software maker Shopify made headlines when it announced layoffs of nearly 1,000 employees — 10 percent of their workforce. After two years of explosive ecommerce demand, preceded by two decades of steady growth, it appears as though the ecommerce sector is finally starting to slow down.

While reporting its quarterly earnings last month, Walmart made headlines by announcing that it was lowering its profit guidance for the upcoming year.

In 2021, many direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands — including Allbirds, Warby Parker, and FIGS — went public. In fact, IPOs among these types of companies were up more than 100% from the previous year.

When the COVID-19 pandemic forced people around the world to stay home and shelter in place, shopping habits changed overnight. Suddenly, ecommerce retailers found themselves on cloud nine: U.S. consumers spent $1.7 trillion online in 2020 and 2021, a whopping 55 percent increase from the previous two years.

Though ecommerce companies have no doubt enjoyed the pandemic-fueled surge of the last two years, growth of the sector has created a new challenge: returns.

Higher prices are here to stay. As a result, consumers are having to spend more on things like food, gas, and other staples — and many ecommerce companies are suffering as a result.

Price optimization can help midsized e-commerce retailers to secure a profit margin and compete with the industry’s giants, but the experience of using analytics systems has to improve.

The e-commerce industry is making moves to defend its margins. The ability of online retailers to balance price with profitability will determine who wins in volatile markets.

As the e-commerce industry matures, it faces many of the same challenges as traditional retail. Mastery of data remains the key to success, but what that means is evolving. 

In this blog, we discuss 12 approaches, familiar and new, that can be significantly enhanced by AI-powered analytics.

Learn how harnessing AI in the right way can help retailers accelerate their speed-to-transformation, speed-to-market, and more.

Learn how data intelligence is helping supply chain recovery by filtering through the noise, finding patterns, and providing actionable insights for organizations.

While mastery of data and analytics will be the key to retail success, learn why pricing should be retailers' first target.

Learn how certain data points used in combination with other internal and external knowledge can help a retailer solve puzzling legacy riddles that lead to lost profitability.

Learn how actionable data drives change from the production floor to long-term customer loyalty programs.