The Toy Association: four trends for 2024

1. Sustainability

Consumers increasingly care about sustainability, which is now a common concern when purchasing toys, the association said. Nearly half (45%) of parents under age 40 consider the environmental impact of a toy when making purchasing decisions, it found in a recent survey of U.S. parents. 

“In 2024, toymakers will prioritize sustainability not only as a commitment to using eco-friendly materials, but also as a holistic approach aligned with these evolving consumer values,” said Kristin Morency Goldman, senior director of strategic communications at The Toy Association. Some toys aligned with this trend will address environmental factors directly, like a new version of Settlers of Catan that asks players to engage with ecological events and make decisions between fossil fuels and clean energy. Other traditionally plastic toys will advertise the use of plant-based materials.

Consumers are most concerned with the durability aspect of sustainability, according to a 2023 Deloitte Sustainable Consumer report. To that end, toy makers will also emphasize the craftsmanship of toys and their ability to be repurposed as children age.

2. Fantasy and mystery

Goldman pointed to a “resurgent cultural interest in spooky, mystery, and horror genres across movies, TV, and literature” driving this trend. The Toy Association named the Netflix series “Wednesday” a top media property to watch. The show surpassed “Stranger Things” to become the top-viewed English-language Netflix series in its first week. Mattel signed a multi-year licensing deal to produce toys based on the series for its Monster High and Little People lines. In addition, Mattel relaunched the Monster High line in 2023 and said it was the highest growth property among its doll category.

Another high-profile property, Harry Potter, will also drive sales in this toy category, the association said. Goldman pointed to the Talking Sorting Hat toy sold by Lego debuting in the spring.

3. Sports 

Consumers increasingly prefer toys that teach a skill and incorporate screen-free play, said Jen Lynch, content developer at The Toy Association. 65% of parents said they want toys that help build a skill, per a survey from the association. The group predicts a boost in popularity for sports toys, bolstered by the 2024 Summer Olympics. Sports is the highest-selling category within toys, accounting for $4.5 billion in 2023, although it also saw the greatest sales declines, down 16%.

The Toy Association expects Pickleball to be popular, along with new Nerf offerings from Hasbro and other sensory toys.

4. Anime

Toys based on media properties continue to be popular, and anime is the next area poised to grow, the association predicts. Anime reached new mainstream audiences in recent years, propelled by an interest in escapism during the pandemic. One in four parents said in a survey that they’re likely to buy children toys based on an anime franchise.

The genre is increasingly accessible through streaming services, making it more valuable, Lynch said. “Naruto” and “One Piece” are the most sought-after licenses, she said. This category also gives retailers an opportunity to target “kidults,” who engage with anime on social media and buy toys for themselves. 

State of the toy industry

2023 was a difficult year for toy retailers. Sales were depressed going into the holidays, which is usually the main event for the industry driven by end-of-year sales and gifting. The fourth quarter typically accounts for about 70% of U.S. toy sales, according to retail research firm Coresight Research. 

Holiday sales weren’t enough to make up for declines throughout the year. 2023 toy sales declined 8% from 2022 to 2023, totaling $28.0 billion, according to research firm Circana.

The Toy Association didn’t make explicit overall sales predictions for 2024. However, there’s hope that slowing inflation and lower interest rates might have an impact on toy sales later in the year, it said.

Mattel’s results

Toy retailer Mattel outperformed the industry as a whole in 2023. It reported net sales grew 16% in the fiscal fourth quarter ended Dec. 31. Sales were flat for the year.

“Execution on our toy strategy was strong and we made meaningful progress in entertainment across film, television, digital and publishing. We ended 2023 with the strongest balance sheet we have had in years, putting us in an excellent position to execute our strategy to grow Mattel’s IP-driven toy business and expand our entertainment offering,” CEO Ynon Kriez said. “As we look to 2024, we believe we are very well positioned competitively and will continue to outpace the industry and gain market share.”

However, the retailer anticipates the industry will see further spending decline in 2024.

“We expect the toy industry to decline in 2024, although at a lesser rate than 2023. The anticipated decline is due to a lighter toy theatrical film slate and the impact of the shift in consumer spending patterns towards experiences and services, which we believe will moderate over the year,” Kreiz said. It predicts growth will resume in 2025.

Mattel ranks No. 205 in the 2023 Digital Commerce 360 Top 1000, a ranking of North America’s leading retailers by online sales.

Do you rank in our database?

Submit your data with this quick survey and we’ll see where you fit in our next ranking update.

Sign up

Stay on top of the latest developments in the ecommerce industry. Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 Retail News. Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. Be the first to know when Digital Commerce 360 publishes news content.

The post The Toy Association predicts the hottest categories of 2024 after a disappointing 2023 appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

Just 9% of those consumers said they’re satisfied with their in-store shopping experiences, though that figure is slightly higher at 14% for ecommerce experiences.

Every two years, the IBM Institute for Business Value surveys global consumers about their shopping habits and preferences. For its third study, IBM surveyed 20,000 respondents in September and October 2023. It asked them to describe their digital habits, their use of AI and generative AI, their expectations for brands, and their sentiments regarding sustainability.

In North America, 18 online retailers in the Top 1000 use IBM for order management services. Those 18 retailers generated more than $90.56 billion in web sales in 2022. The Top 1000 is Digital Commerce 360’s database of the region’s largest online retailers, ranked by their annual web sales.

IBM 2024 consumer study’s findings

“Roughly four in five consumers who haven’t yet used artificial intelligence for shopping would like to see how it can help them research products or get product information (86%), look for deals and promotions (79%) or get service, ask questions, and resolve issues (82%),” IBM said in reporting its survey results.

But that process isn’t always smooth, IBM found. Shoppers want to easily access orders, shopping carts and purchase histories every step of the way, IBM said.

“They crave more choices but less hassle, with accurate inventory data, delivery timelines, and targeted offers available in real time, at the click of a button. Most of all, they want things to just work. But they often don’t,” IBM said in its report.

It said many chatbots still lack the training, capabilities and skills they need to understand basic requests and answer customers’ questions. Because of this, just a third of consumers who have used chatbots and virtual assistants are happy with their experience, IBM found.

Benefits of implementing generative AI

Generative AI assistants can serve consumers more helpful shopping suggestions, and in natural language, IBM said. They can tap customer support emails, call transcripts, purchase history and more in real time to improve the customer experience. Similarly, generative AI can improve search functionality to then improve the customer experience, according to IBM.

Generative AI requires data collection for its large language models to be effective. In retail, that data can include what customers clicked on, where they shopped, how long they spent on certain pages, and more. It can also analyze historical sales data, market trends and other factors to predict future demand more accurately, IBM said. That would, in turn, help companies optimize production levels, reduce overstock and minimize waste.

“But consumers want to know how their information is being used (44%) and want more control over how companies use their data (40%),” IBM found. “To build trust with wary consumers — while also offering the unified experiences they want — companies must get customers’ explicit permission to track and analyze their behavior. Setting expectations up front for every interaction can make customers feel like they’re being catered to, rather than spied on.”

Sustainability continues growing as a consumer priority

Consumers “want hard data, not vague PR statements” about sustainability, IBM found. And less than half (41%) of consumers said they have sufficient information to shop sustainably. Meanwhile, nearly eight in 10 (78%) of consumers said sustainability is important to them when choosing a brand to shop from. Additionally, 61% said they’d change their shopping habits if it meant helping reduce negative environmental impacts.

That’s not just a hypothetical, the survey’s findings showed. More than two in three (67%) consumers surveyed said at least half of the products they bought in their last purchase were sustainable.

“Consumers want to see how companies measure up in the areas they most care about, such as the use of safe and natural ingredients and recycled materials — but companies aren’t providing enough information,” IBM said in its report.

Top three sustainability factors consumers care about:

1. Safe ingredients or materials
2. Natural ingredients or materials
3. Use of recycled materials

Top three sustainability metrics that consumer-product companies report on:

1. Scope 1 GHG emissions
2. Percent of women in the company’s workforce
3. Scope 2 GHG emissions

GHG refers to greenhouse gases. Scopes 1 and 2 refer to the different kinds of emissions of those gases.

Scope 1 emissions are direct emissions that come from sources controlled or owned by an organization, according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Examples include emissions associated with fuel combustion in boilers, furnaces or vehicles. Scope 2 emissions are indirect and associated with the purchase of electricity, steam, heat or cooling. According to the EPA, although scope 2 emissions physically occur at the facility where they are generated, they are accounted for in an organization’s GHG inventory because they are a result of the organization’s energy use.

Key takeaways from the IBM study:

• Nearly two-thirds of Gen Zers and Millennials want to shop for products from multiple brands on a marketplace with a single checkout.
• 3 in 5 consumers would like to use AI applications as they shop.
• 73% of consumers who care about sustainability are willing to pay more for sustainable products—up from 50% in 2022.

Do you rank in our database?

Submit your data and we’ll see where you fit in our next ranking update.

Sign up

Stay on top of the latest developments in the ecommerce industry. Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 Retail News. Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. Be the first to know when Digital Commerce 360 publishes news content.

The post IBM study: AI, sustainability central to improving customer experience appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

Below, we recap some of Digital Commerce 360’s most insightful articles about online retailers from 2023 regarding 10 key coverage areas:

1. Industry news and trends (including the Bed Bath & Beyond saga)
2. Artificial intelligence
3. Digital marketing
4. Exploring new technology
5. Fulfillment and delivery
6. Livestreaming
7. Mergers and acquisitions
8. Online marketplaces
9. Payments and fraud
10. Sustainability

These stories highlight meaningful changes to online retailers’ ecommerce operations in 2023. Most notably, they include new and improved technologies and strategies that online retailers have implemented. We published roundups specifically for some of these coverage areas over the first couple weeks of 2024, and we link to them below. Those topic roundups — about artificial intelligence, fulfillment and delivery, and payments and fraud — include subtopics.

1) Industry news and trends

Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse hit the ecommerce world. See a list of impacted companies.

The bank had a history of investing in ecommerce startups, and Etsy, Shopify, and others had accounts with Silicon Valley Bank. 

Gathering data in the age of privacy 

Learning how to collect and use first-party data is key if retailers are to navigate a world without third-party cookies. 

Data shows online retailers with the highest carbon footprints

Websites emit carbon dioxide emissions (CO2). Recent data shows which retailers top the list of offenders versus those who don’t. 

Retail profitability rebounds but remains pressured by online costs

Retailers’ profits declined from 2012-2019, in part due to the costs associated with online and omnichannel sales, but bounced back during the pandemic, Deloitte says. Cutting costs, including by limiting free shipping and handling returns more efficiently, will be essential to maintaining profit margins.

What ecommerce retailers can learn from HomeGoods exit

Despite giving ecommerce a go, HomeGoods found out that off-price retailing is not well suited for its online sales.

1.5) The Bed Bath & Beyond saga

Amid all this ecommerce news and the largest online retail trends of 2023, one story remained at the forefront for months. Bed Bath & Beyond’s downfall had — and continues to have — a meaningful impact on the retail industry.

Bed Bath & Beyond says it’s not beyond help, but reports further losses

Coming just days after the retailer said it might seek bankruptcy protection, the poor earnings report paints a dismal picture for the beleaguered retailer. 

Which retailers will benefit from Bed Bath & Beyond’s demise?

Bed Bath & Beyond’s bankruptcy presents an opportunity for retailers to cash in on the shopping experience both in store and online. 

Overstock CEO says brand name is a “boat anchor” ahead of Bed Bath & Beyond relaunch

Revenue and other key metrics were down for Overstock, but CEO Jonathan Johnson says the Bed Bath & Beyond relaunch will be a “new phase.” 

Goodbye, hello: Buy Buy Baby preps to be born again

Under new ownership, Bed Bath & Beyond’s former baby-products retailing unit plans an ecommerce and brick-and-mortar revival.

2) Artificial intelligence

Perhaps the most-talked-about subject for months, if not the entire year, artificial intelligence had a resurgence in 2023. Many retailers were already using it — and machine-learning technology — to guide operating processes. But then, generative AI entered the arena at the end of 2022, and it drew global attention to its capabilities. Here’s how some online retailers are leading AI integration into ecommerce.

3) Digital marketing

How are digital marketers using AI to boost conversion?

Artificial intelligence allows digital marketers to quickly test how consumers respond to ads, images and emails. Over time, the algorithm learns, and its predictions become more accurate. Learn how three retailers increased their online sales after investing in AI.

Online flower retailer UrbanStems increases conversion 12% during Valentine’s Day season

Conversion through paid social channels drove that overall increase, growing 83% year over year.

Why wacky ads work on TikTok, while sober is better for Facebook

Four online marketers share ways they curate their brands’ social media content to cater to their target audience on each platform, and explain when it’s OK to repurpose content.

80% of Chico’s customers sign up for its loyalty program in the first nine months

Chico’s updated its loyalty program for the first time in 30 years, and after one year, more than 80% of customers are members.

Lights, camera, conversion: How some retailers use videos to entice shoppers to buy

Online retailers use video to provide shoppers with a rich customer experience that informs, engages and converts.

4) Exploring new technology

Generative AI wasn’t the only new technology to hit retailers’ tech stacks in 2023. Companies dived into the metaverse and other virtual realities. They also took advantage of atypical payment methods and found ways to change business models entirely.

American Girl invests in its virtual museum

The retailer’s digital museum provides content so girls can play, learn more about the brand’s doll characters and create product wish lists.

Crurated’s wine platform uses NFTs and memberships to find a younger market

70% of Crurated’s members using the blockchain wine service are under 45 years old.

Forever 21 caters to Gen Z shoppers with fast checkout, metaverse products

Despite an initially turbulent relationship, apparel brand Forever 21 and payment provider Bolt Financial are now touting positive results from the integration of the streamlined checkout button.

What online retailers can learn from Evite’s business model pivot

Evite’s customer experience suffered because of the company’s reliance on advertising revenue, CEO David Yeom tells Digital Commerce 360. Evite took the lull in parties during the pandemic to overhaul its revenue streams. 

UK crafts retailer uses data to guide website replatforming process

Hobbycraft had to learn what parts of its website did and didn’t make sense for its shoppers, what bugs to work out, and what changes its website wasn’t capable of. And after about 12 years with its previous website, it replatformed in March 2022.

5) Fulfillment and delivery

Online retailers continued learning how to cut and manage shipping costs in 2023. Some major retailers optimized fulfillment and delivery by using stores to fulfill orders, whether via delivering from them or urging customers to use in-store and curbside pickup options. These stories highlight meaningful fulfillment trends among online retailers in 2023.

6) Livestreaming

Natori invests in livestreaming to appeal to new generation of customers

Luxury apparel brand The Natori Co. believes livestreaming will enable the brand to appeal to new customers. 

Orchard Mile takes control by livestreaming its own shopping events

Luxury online marketplace Orchard Mile hosts livestreaming shopping events through its own website rather than other channels. 

Newegg livestreams more than 24 hours a day

Newegg livestreams 30 hours of content on weekdays, which includes livestreams across its six handles and in China. 

Women’s apparel retailer ‘Evereve TV’ attracts shoppers, increases conversion

Evereve staff model clothing and share their styling tips through video on the retailer’s Evereve TV — and it’s boosting sales.

7) Mergers and acquisitions

Although there were many more mergers and acquisitions in 2023, these are some of the most notable ones impacting the industry.

Walmart sells outdoor retailer Moosejaw to Dick’s Sporting Goods

It’s the latest example of Walmart selling off online-focused brands it acquired as it bulked up its ecommerce business several years ago. Moosejaw will be part of the Public Lands outdoor business unit that Dick’s launched in 2021. 

Unilever is selling Dollar Shave Club after seven years

Private equity firm Nexus Capital Management will acquire a 65% stake in Dollar Shave Club, with Unilever retaining 35%. The deal is expected to close by the end of the year. 

UPS to acquire Happy Returns

Happy Returns’ service for online orders will soon be available at more than 12,000 U.S. locations, the CEO of UPS says.

What Sycamore gets for $1 billion to buy Chico’s

Private equity firm Sycamore Partners unsuccessfully tried to buy Chico’s FAS in 2019. Why is Chico’s worth $1 billion? 

Why a serial ecommerce entrepreneur bought Blue Apron

Blue Apron is being sold to Wonder Group, an online food-to-home delivery company, founded by serial ecommerce entrepreneur Marc Lore.

8) Online marketplaces

Michael’s is the latest retailer to add a third-party marketplace

The digital marketplace will quadruple the number of products for sale, with the majority from third-party sellers.

Walmart and Amazon are growing their online marketplaces. Here’s how they compare.

They are both growing the number of third-party sellers on their online marketplaces, but Amazon has a significant lead. 

Selling on Amazon is key for SMBs, but it might not make money

Small and medium-sized retailers say selling on Amazon is a necessary part of customer acquisition, despite added costs. 

Amazon fee change ‘completely out of the blue’ for some Amazon sellers

Amazon announced it will end its Small and Light Program and introduce Low-Price FBA rates for all items priced below $10 (previously $12). 

Prime Day’s mixed message: some merchants boost prices during the event

Last year, retailers raised prices on 13% of top-selling items during the Prime Day promotion, according to new research. And this year, Amazon rolled out invitation-only deals that limit price drops to select shoppers. 

Amazon announces updates to Buy with Prime to stay competitive

Updating Buy with Prime is a way for Amazon to collect data and keep its market share while competing with Shopify.

What were the biggest ecommerce takeaways from Amazon’s Q2 earnings call?

CEO Andy Jassy said Amazon is developing more AI technology, making its fulfillment more efficient and improving its B2B division for business buyers.

EBay rolls out its generative AI listing tool to all marketplace sellers in app

The generative AI tool writes product descriptions for eBay’s app marketplace sellers based on their listing’s metadata. 

Michaels launches MakerPlace online marketplace

Michaels MakerPlace does not charge sellers a listing fee and allows them to sell access to virtual classes and how-to guides. 

9) Payments and fraud

Buy now, pay later was already on the rise going into 2023, when its popularity continued to grow. And as retailers considered implementing BNPL, even if late in the game, they also looked into other ways to make the payments process smoother for their consumers. These stories highlight meaningful payments and fraud trends from last year, showing how online retailers are staying focused on their bottom lines.

10) Sustainability

Grove Collaborative CEO talks sustainable shipping

With a goal to be plastic-free by 2025, personal care and home products brand Grove details ways it makes direct-to-consumer shipping more sustainable.

The secondhand retail industry grew 28% in 2022, according to ThredUp’s latest report

The report shows Gen Z and millennials are growing more open to buying and selling used clothing online. 

How an apparel brand eliminates polybags

Toad and Co. commits to less packaging by sending orders in reusable bags and switching to paper-based polybags that can be regularly recycled.

Bedding brand aims for luxury unboxing without extra tissue paper

Beflax, a small online business, ships its $300 linen bedsheets in reusable packages. The brand wants its customers to have a premium package without extra waste.

Jewelry retailer strives for sustainability on different levels

J’evar uses an in-house generative AI tool to boost its sustainability efforts, which also include using a solar farm to grow its own diamonds.

Archive helps retailers resell their own products

Hanna Andersson customers take advantage of store credit options as they list items on the retailer’s Hanna-Me-Downs resale site. 

Do you rank in our database?

Submit your data with this quick survey and we’ll see where you fit in our next ranking update.

Sign up

Stay on top of the latest developments in the ecommerce industry. Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 Retail News. Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. Be the first to know when Digital Commerce 360 publishes news content.

The post Editors’ picks: Our favorite stories about online retailers in 2023 appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

B2B ecommerce technology trends

1. The continued importance of B2B ecommerce

B2B ecommerce has taken the lead as the most effective sales channel, rated first by 35% of respondents, ahead of in-person sales (26%), video conference (12%), email (10%), and telephone (8%).

2. Predictive B2B ecommerce will drive digital buyer behavior

The market for predictive analytics software was valued at $5.29 billion in 2020 and is forecasted to grow to $41.52 billion by 2028.

3. Dynamic pricing means B2B sellers react instantly to buyer price points

17% of ecommerce companies planned on starting to use dynamic pricing in 2021, and this number will grow to over 22% for 2024.

4. Sustainability matters in B2B ecommerce

B2B buyers would consider breaking off their relationship with a company if it did not take sustainability or social issues seriously

5. AI transforms B2B ecommerce to autonomous commerce

Autonomous commerce allows companies to create a seamless and personalized buying experience for their customer

More Charts & Data Stories

Check back soon for more Charts & Data Stories, like our weekly B2B infographics. Here’s this week’s. We add new content regularly. 

Sign up

Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 B2B News, published 4x/week. It covers technology and business trends in the growing B2B ecommerce industry. Contact Mark Brohan, senior vice president of B2B and Market Research, at mark@digitalcommerce360.com. Follow him on Twitter @markbrohan. Follow us on LinkedIn and be the first to know when we publish Digital Commerce 360 B2B News content.

The post 5 technology trends that will shape B2B ecommerce in 2024 appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

Artificial intelligence was already a key technology for retailers to implement going into 2023. And then generative AI boomed.

Retailers had to start exploring how they could integrate generative AI into their ecommerce sites while keeping up with all the technology they had planned to invest in for the year. And so, Digital Commerce 360 conducted its annual technology survey. It asked about what online retailers would invest in, how much, how that compares to the previous year, and more. Digital Commerce 360’s 2024 Leading Vendors to the Top 1000 Retailers Report details the survey’s findings.

The 2024 Leading Vendors report shows which ecommerce technologies online retailers have implemented — or abstained from — including:

• Artificial intelligence (with a subsection on generative AI)
• Ecommerce sites and platforms (with a subsection on fraud)
• Online marketplace management
• Email and digital marketing
• Fulfillment, with subsections on:
  • Omnichannel
  • Sustainability
  • Subscriptions

Key findings in the Leading Vendors 2024 report

According to Digital Commerce 360′ technology survey, well over half of retailers (62.8%) plan to increase their ecommerce technology and services spending next year. More than a fifth (22.9%) plan to spend the same amount on ecommerce technology next year. Meanwhile, just 14.3% plan to decrease their ecommerce technology spend next year.

Of those who said they planned to increase their ecommerce technology spending, not even a quarter (24%) said they would spend at least 15.1% more than in 2023. Just 3% of respondents said they would spend 50% more on ecommerce technology in 2024 compared with 2023.

Moreover, nearly a third (30.3%) said they would spend no greater than 5% more on ecommerce technology in 2024 compared with this year. A 15% increase in spending is the limit for about three-quarters of respondents.

2024 Leading Vendors to the Top 1000 Retailers Report

Analysis of the leading vendors that serve North America's Top 1000 online retailers. Includes rankings of the Top 10 leading vendors across 24 categories, including Customer Relationship Management, Ecommerce Platforms, Fulfillment Services, Marketing Automation Platforms, and more.

View Details

What kinds of technology are online retailers investing in most?

Digital Commerce 360 asked retailers in the Leading Vendors 2024 report what they found most important to spend on in 2024 when it came to ecommerce technology. At the top of the list, retailers equally prioritized improving the customer experience and improving conversion rate — naturally, the two go hand in hand.

Meanwhile, there was another tie for the next most important reasons for increasing ecommerce technology spending in 2024. Retailers said they want to better attract customers, better personalize shopping experiences, and improve site performance (including speed and efficiency).

Although more than 40% of retailers said they want to increase their technology spend to attract new customers, not even a third (30%) said they’re increasing spending to retain customers. Just over a quarter (26.7%) said they want to increase spending so they can generate more sales from repeat customers. The same number, however, said they want to support more cross-channel shopping.

At the same time, mobile seems to be less of a priority. Less than a quarter of respondents (23.3%) said they want to use increased technology spending to improve their mobile shopping experience. And not even a fifth of respondents (16.6%) said they want to use their increase in tech spending to generate more traffic and sales through mobile commerce.

What are the biggest tech priorities for e-retailers?

The technology survey in the Leading Vendors 2024 report found that there’s a tie for the top priority when it comes to retailers’ 2024 tech budgets. Nearly a third (30% each) of retailers said their biggest technology priorities for 2024 are content management and their ecommerce platforms. Similarly, a pair of priorities tied for second. Just over a quarter (26.7%) want to prioritize product management and web analytics.

Search engine optimization (SEO) tied for third with website performance management and order management (23.3% each). Meanwhile, only a fifth of respondents included artificial intelligence in their top five ecommerce technology budget priorities for 2024. The same number selected affiliate marketing, omnichannel, online marketing, and customer relationship management technology as top-five priorities.

On the low-priority end of the spectrum, just 10% of retailers surveyed listed fulfillment services or payment (including security systems and fraud prevention) as a top-five priority.

Fewer than 10% of respondents said their priorities include customer ratings and reviews, customer service software, international ecommerce software, and sales tax management. And not even 5% of retailer respondents selected social media as a top-five priority, nor supply chain management.

When it comes to artificial intelligence, more than a quarter of respondents aren’t just interested, but they’re using it with good results (28.57%). And just under a quarter are using it but with limited results (23.81%). Meanwhile, not even 5% of surveyed retailers are using machine learning with good results. But a third are using it with limited results. For 2024, 42% of surveyed retailers are considering AI, and a third are considering machine learning. Just under 5% of respondents don’t plan to invest in AI. And over a quarter (28.57%) plan not to invest in machine learning.

Do you rank in our databases?

Submit your data and we’ll see where you fit in our next ranking update.

Sign up

Stay on top of the latest developments in the ecommerce industry. Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 Retail News. Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. Be the first to know when Digital Commerce 360 publishes news content.

The post Leading Vendors 2024: What have the top ecommerce technology vendors been up to? appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

The tool allows J’evar’s jewelry designers to input information about the product’s materials and specifications, and the generative AI will produce an image of that product. The tool saves the brand weeks of manual design time on products, says Amish Shah, founder and CEO of the direct-to-consumer brand of jewelry featuring lab-grown diamonds.

J’evar began using its jewelry product AI generator last year in 2022. The retailer feeds metrics and images into a knowledge bank — or a database of text, images and metrics for materials that include the weight of gold and silver, among other key details — for the generator to refer to before it produces an image. Shah jokingly refers to it as “JevarGPT 1.0” and “AI for Jewelry 1.0,” the former a reference to OpenAI consortium’s ChatGPT.

For example, Shah says if he wanted to make a bangle, he could input a text prompt to the generative AI, specifying how much the weight of gold should be for that piece, how thin or wide it should be and what design style he would like. He can even ask it to produce 50 iterations from that single prompt. In return, the generative AI will output complete designs, some of which might be ready to turn into tangible products. Other product designs the AI outputs require J’evar designers to modify the design until it can be producible.

Shah says one key reason J’evar can’t produce all the designs is because of the inability to cut diamonds into the shape the AI generates. But even this ability is coming soon with new machinery, he says.

Exploring generative AI for design

“You’re looking at optimization, efficiency, speed — which is of course going to lead to cost reduction in the longer term,” Shah says about using generative AI. “But importantly, from an output perspective, we’re looking at precision and a higher level of creativity.”

In the past few years, developers have trained artificial intelligence to do more than analyze data and tell its users what to make of the data. They’ve trained AI to generate writing, images, videos and sounds. This is called generative AI, and online retailers have already begun to design new products and produce new variations of existing products — and do so quickly. With generative AI, retailers can create and test multiple product ideas in just minutes, much faster than the weeks or months it might take to design now. Online retailers, including J’evar and Auricle Technology, are learning how to use generative AI to assist their product designers, making the process more efficient. But because generative AI is still new, it has limitations on what it can do.

J’evar uses its own generative AI technology to help its human designers speed up the creative process.

Gen AI’s value outshines its current limitations

While generative AI is excellent for learning and processing massive amounts of data, it is not yet at a point that it can understand movement through space, says Brendan Witcher, vice president and principal analyst at research firm Forrester. It doesn’t think about engineering and structural elements or physical viability yet, he says. Although generative AI is not at that point yet, he says, that doesn’t mean it can’t be eventually.

“You want to design a shoe. Great,” Witcher says. “Well, a shoe’s a shoe until you put it on and have to run in it, then it falls apart on you because you didn’t think about the physics of how movement happens.

“The big question is when do we bridge the gap between the work that needs to be put into generative AI to understand the movement through physical space that objects need to go through often, and the commercial viability of doing that.”

Informed assessments

However, even with its current limitations, Witcher says generative AI’s value comes from the assessments it already has learned to make. He says people do their jobs based on the knowledge they receive in their training, and “AI kind of works like that too.” But generative AI “takes it to the next step” and looks at more data than humans can process, and then make assessments about what the best subsequent steps are. It can also come up with ideas humans couldn’t or wouldn’t think of because the human mind doesn’t process information the way artificial intelligence tools can, he says.

“We can’t absorb that much data and extract from it an idea. It’s just impossible for us,” Witcher says. “It shouldn’t be lost that just developing an image of something that you wouldn’t be able to think of because you weren’t trained to think that way has huge possibilities.”

Witcher says generative AI’s value extends beyond production speed to unique creations.

“A lot of people talk about generating imagery with AI, but what to me is most important is the ability to do it over and over and over again until you get something you like,” Witcher says.

Will generative AI replace human designers?

Generative AI is not here to replace humans in the design phase, Shah says. Especially not in the jewelry industry.

“Human intelligence supersedes artificial intelligence, at least I can say that for jewelry,” Shah says.

Generative AI is more like an assistant to human designer, Shah says. It’s not the technology that’s telling designers when a piece has been finalized. It’s a human making that decision, Shah says. Just like Adobe and Corel are graphics software tools for designers, generative AI is a design tool, not a human replacement, he says.

“Once we get the initial output, it is then modified to be producible,” Shah says.

Forrester’s Witcher agrees that AI should be used as a tool and not a replacement for creative individuals.

“If all the people learn how to do things on generative AI, then no one learns how to do it beyond generative AI,” Witcher says. “Over time, you start weeding out the expertise from the low-level individuals and nobody becomes a high-level individual.”

Witcher adds that the majority of AI use isn’t leaving artificial intelligence “to its own devices.”

“It’s more assisted intelligence — the AI standing for assisted intelligence — where we’re using it to be more productive in our own jobs that we currently do today,” Witcher says.

J’evar uses generative AI to speed up the design process

Traditionally, Shah says, jewelry design is a long process that can take a few weeks or even more than a month. In the case of commissioned designs, J’evar designers would first have to understand what kind of product a customer wants before going into iterations. In the example of designing a bangle, the designers would have to first determine if a customer wanted a wide cuff or something they could stack, something lightweight or heavy, thick or thin, if they wanted diamonds or gemstones, and so on.

Then, the designers would do initial mockups to ensure they understood the customer’s request correctly. This process would typically be one to three weeks of showing designs to the customer and sketching accordingly, Shah says.

In one case, Shah says he and his team had gone through 55 variations before a customer said, “I love it.” After that, his team would then go to computer-aided design (CAD). From there, it would go to rendering.

“By using AI, we are able to take that process down to pretty much hours and in some cases, literally within minutes,” Shah says.

Moreover, when working manually, the designer has to move every single diamond into place, making sure they are in the correct position. AI speeds up that process, Shah says. In milliseconds, the generative AI processor can move diamonds and gemstones, raise or lower gold weight, or change the width or thickness.

“It’s almost like putting a thousand designers and the type of work they would have done into the knowledge bank and then letting the system do a combination from those thousand designs to give you back results,” he says.

J’evar fed years’ worth of jewelry data into its generative AI platform. The platform produces images that human designers then adjust in the design phase.

Developing a custom generative AI processor

Shah says his family’s 90-year history in the jewelry business gives him an advantage over others in developing custom generative AI technology for J’evar.

“It sounds complex, but you have to keep in mind: We’re in the business,” Shah says. “We’re in the jewelry business, so the core bank or the core information that’s required is sitting with us. It’s not something I have to go outside and source.”

J’evar feeds text and imagery into its generative AI to teach it what to output. When inputting prompts, J’evar designers primarily use text to generate an image.

“That knowledge bank is sitting there,” Shah says. “Now, it’s all about organizing it and feeding it into the system in a format that can then be analyzed and the GPUs can run and start combining things and getting them back to you.”

Iterations at scale

Sometimes, what generative AI produces needs less human modification than others. For example, Auricle Technology uses generative AI tools to swap out logos and colors on its different products.

Auricle Technology founder William Cooksey says he created his electronics accessory brand out of necessity. He uses Apple AirPods for long hours most days, and the hard plastic begins to hurt his ears after a while. That led him to create AirPod skins made from silicone that are softer and anchor better into his ears.

When his manufacturer sent back prototypes, it printed Auricle’s logo on them. That led Cooksey to realize the importance of branding and how he can “pivot and get into the licensing game.”

The direct-to-consumer brand launched in 2021 now creates customized merchandise including AirPod skins, AirPod charging case skins, phone cases, wireless chargers and mouse pads. And through licensing agreements, it prints these products with logos for more than 90 teams in Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League and Major League Soccer, as well as about 130 college teams.

Rather than have a designer manually change the colors and logos for each team, the brand has integrated generative AI into its design process, Cooksey says.

Unlike J’evar, however, Auricle does not have the budget nor the in-house capacity to develop an all-new generative AI engine. Its business model is also different, focusing on customization rather than new product development.

New technology, but make it affordable

Cooksey instead works with Goals Media Group to use generative AI into its product iterations. Goals uses technology Microsoft for Startups provides, says Goals founder and CEO Aubrey Flynn. This means it receives access to Microsoft’s resources, including technology and tech experts, among other benefits. Microsoft has announced it would invest $10 billion into OpenAI — the company behind text-based generative AI brand ChatGPT and image-based DALL-E.

Cooksey says his lead designer and Flynn determined generative AI was the way to go from designing products with one team logo to hundreds “in a short period of time without breaking the bank.”

Auricle also uses Goals and its generative AI offerings to develop marketing materials like images for social media that highlight products from different teams at different stadiums. The generative AI creates an image complete with Auricle branding, the team’s branding, and any copy it needs.

“Being a small business, not having a lot of capital, it’s really exciting me that we can still come up with quality images without breaking our budget,” Cooksey says.

“When you deal with those leagues, they want you to be able to launch all the teams at the same time,” Cooksey says. “I just wouldn’t have been able to afford to do that.”

Generative AI’s impact on metrics

Goals has about 650 clients and nearly half are online retailers, Flynn says.

Flynn says that social media marketing creatives that generative AI produced can increase consumer interactions with the ad by more than 35% compared with that brand’s normal creative, according to data from its clients.

This includes creatives entirely generated through AI, visuals that already existed that AI has augmented, and copy that generative AI has helped develop for those types of visuals.

“I’ve seen AI-powered creative outperform to the extent where cost per click on a certain product may have been 30%-40% less expensive based on some of the guidance from AI on the copy and the imagery,” he says.

He adds that brands like Auricle — which lack access to capital, resources, infrastructure and more that large brands have — need to adopt technology like generative AI early on because it’s less expensive than some alternatives like hiring designers or manufacturers from the start.

Early results are insightful, but ‘is this just another buzzword?’

Shah, Cooksey, Witcher and Flynn all expressed the same idea: It may be early, but the application of generative AI in product development is promising.

While some may say generative AI is another buzzword, Witcher says what separates this technology from other tech fads is that companies are already allowing individuals in their organizations to play with, understand and experiment with generative AI.

“They’re almost crowd-sourcing proof of concept,” Witcher says. “It’s a unique characteristic to generative AI that it’s so easy to do and work with that almost anybody can do it.”

Although results are limited in some ways and sometimes imperfect, online retailers are using generative AI imaging to design new products essentially from scratch, customize existing products and develop marketing content. They can develop multiple iterations of these images at once or continue iterating on the same image multiple times until they’re satisfied with how the image looks. They can then take the design that generative AI produces and tweak it manually, saving them the time of doing each iteration manually — and saving them the creative energy it takes just to design a new product iteration.

Do you rank in our databases?

Submit your data and we’ll see where you fit in our next ranking update.

The post Can generative AI help online retailers design better products? appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

GE Renewable Energy has launched a B2B marketplace featuring 100,000 products from more than 30 sellers. The Renewable energy division is a part of GE Vernona, which operates and services 54,000 wind turbines and 7,000 gas turbines worldwide.

GE B2B marketplace

The available inventory includes wind turbine products from GE and other original equipment manufacturers. Specifically, the GE B2B marketplace specializes in onshore wind spare parts, including parts for all major wind turbines and additional items such as tooling, safety gear and office supplies.

Digital features are available on the marketplace tools for payments, securing financing, cashflow management and invoicing among others.

“We’re excited to launch this expanded online platform,” says GE Verona chief commercial officer Uzair Memon. “We’ve heard a lot of feedback from our customer base that it would help them to be able to access both GE and other OEM parts all in one location.”

GE Renewable Energy says it is a $16 billion business that operates in 80 countries. Its products and services include onshore and offshore wind, blades, hydro, storage, utility-scale solar programs.

Sign up

Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 B2B News, published 4x/week. It covers technology and business trends in the growing B2B ecommerce industry. Contact Mark Brohan, senior vice president of B2B and Market Research, at mark@digitalcommerce360.com. Follow him on Twitter @markbrohan. Follow us on LinkedIn and be the first to know when we publish Digital Commerce 360 B2B News content.

The post A GE marketplace blows its way into the wind turbine business appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

“We’ve seen our customers pass down clothing within family and friends and from generation to generation,” she says.

The brand also noticed it was popular on other resale platforms. Hanna Andersson wanted to offer its own peer-to-peer reseller marketplace. It wanted a “seamless integration,” Carter says. The brand turned to Archive. The software platform allows brands to customize its own secondhand marketplace website.

It’s a move that other retailers are making, with $177 billion in secondhand global sales in 2022, according to ThredUp’s 2023 resale report. Resale continues to grow, as the report projects the secondhand industry will nearly double to $351 billion in global sales by 2027. The same data predicts resale goods will account for 10% of all clothing in 2024.

Since launching Hanna-Me-Downs, resellers have listed more than 55,000 items on the website.

Hanna-Me-Downs is an online resale marketplace

Hanna-Me-Downs launched in February 2023. Sales for the resale store were four times higher during the first month than expected. The average seller sells about 10 items. Sellers receive cash or Hanna Andersson gift cards. They receive 125% of the value of their sale price if they choose store credit.

Cash recipients receive 70% of the sale price. Hanna Andersson and Archive declined to disclose how the remaining 30% is split between Archive and the brand. Archive charges a monthly software-as-a-service fee and a percentage of sales.

Since February, 90% of sellers have chosen a credit option, Carter says. Since launching Hanna-Me-Downs, customers have spent more than 200% of their credit value on Hanna Andersson’s main direct to consumer website.

Reselling online

Carter says the retailer has acquired new customers through its resale site. The retailer offers apparel items like children’s baby zip sleeper in organic cotton. This item retails for $42.00 but costs about $13.00 to $20.00 on the resale site.

Archive asks sellers to describe any defects or problems with items they plan to resell on the Hanna-Me-Downs resale store.

Archive built a condition-grading tool for sellers to indicate if there are any flaws with clear descriptions.

While most items indicate that the condition is “excellent with no major issues,” other items with more flaws are priced accordingly. A Circle Pocket Dress in French Terry retailed for $50.00 but was priced as $10.00 on the resale website because “item has a minor stain.”

The goal is to be as transparent as possible. This dress is noted by the seller to have a “minor stain” and is priced at $10.

It’s important to be transparent about the condition of items, says Emily Gittins, CEO and co-founder of Archive. Archive “owns” the customer service portion of the resale site, she says.

“We take on the technological development and customer service burden of managing the marketplace,” Gittins says. Most brands are able to launch their reseller website within a couple of months, she says.

How resale fashion works through Archive

Brands provide Archive with product data. Sellers enter the style ID of an item found on the care label. Sellers can input the SKU from the garment they purchased. In some cases, if there is no tag, the seller can name the item by searching.

The seller is then prompted to answer questions about the item’s condition. This includes whether it’s been worn, is missing buttons or has broken zippers. Sellers are then asked to upload photos of the actual item they plan to sell.

The software’s pricing algorithm takes into consideration the demand for an item and the condition. Online resellers can also adjust the price if it’s an item they will only sell for a certain price, Gittins says.

‘Second Hand September’

In efforts to promote donating, reusing and rewearing clothing items, Archive is working with brands like  M.M.LaFleur, DVF (Diane Von Furstenberg), Faherty and ba&sh, among others to encourage customers to upload items to the retailers’ resale sites during Second Hand September.

Hanna Andersson Corp. ranks No. 477 in the Top 1000, Digital Commerce 360’s ranking of North America’s online retailers by web sales.

“Since September marks both New York Fashion Week and back-to-school, most fashion brands focus on newness during the month,” Gittins said in a statement. “That makes September the perfect time for forward-thinking brands to establish a new narrative by spotlighting their resale offerings.”

Do you rank in our database?

Submit your data and we’ll see where you fit in our next ranking update.

Sign up

Stay on top of the latest developments in the ecommerce industry. Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 Retail News. Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. Be the first to know when Digital Commerce 360 publishes news content.

The post Archive helps retailers resell their own products appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

According to KnownHost, a private web hosting company, Casetify tops the list of worst CO2 emitters. Every web page view produces 12.18 grams of CO2 emissions. Casetify sells tech accessories for products such as phone and laptop cases.

Websites emit carbon dioxide through web-hosting servers. These retrieve data from databases and deliver content to users’ browsers. Energy is often from fossil-fuel-based sources. Data centers house the web servers and networking infrastructure needed to run websites. This requires electricity to keep equipment cool. Many websites use content delivery networks (CDNs), which send content from different locations worldwide. This results in additional energy needed to keep those servers running. Hardware pieces for internet infrastructure (like routers and switches) transmit data, therefore using energy. And user devices, like smartphones and laptops, also use energy, according to KnownHost.

Casetify website tops list of carbon emitters

To put that in perspective, after over a year with 10,000+ monthly page views, Casetify produces the amount of carbon that 67 trees absorb in a year, or 3,306 kWh of energy (which can drive an electric car 21,158 kilometers), according to website carbon calculator Website Carbon. Digital Commerce 360 reached out to Casetify but did not receive a response regarding the findings.

There are more than 5.18 billion people using the internet worldwide, according to Statista. And the number of consumers shopping online continues to grow.

Casetify has a landing page on its website regarding its “key initiatives” to offset its carbon footprint. Actions include using 50% recycled materials and eco-friendly ink, 100% compostable packaging and sustainability-certified facilities. Some direct-to-consumer retail brands are among the top 10 producers of CO2 emissions per visit.

Casetify is followed by:

• Taco Bell (9.46 grams of CO2 emissions)
• Newegg (3.9 grams)
• West Elm (3.01 grams)
• Wayfair LLC (2.79 grams)
• Eddie Bauer LLC (2.51 grams)

Williams Sonoma website produces lowest carbon emissions per website visit

Williams Sonoma produces the lowest carbon footprint with 0.01 grams of CO2 per web page visit. The retailer is followed by Pottery Barn (subsidiary of Williams Sonoma Inc. (0.01 grams), JCPenney (0.04 grams), Nordstrom Inc. (0.06 grams), Aldo (0.13 grams), and Best Buy Co. Inc. (0.13 grams).

Amazon tops list of companies producing most CO2 per month

The top 10 companies total operations producing the most CO2 per month include Amazon.com Inc., with 400,082,802 total grams of CO2 emitted per month. Amazon emitted 71.27 million metric tons of CO2 in 2022, down 0.4% from the previous year, according to Amazon’s annual sustainability report. The company has pledged to cancel out or offset its contribution to greenhouse gas emissions warming the Earth by 2040. Emissions are up about 40% since Amazon set this goal in 2019. That is due in part because of the surge of business in 2020 during the pandemic.

Amazon is No. 3 in Digital Commerce 360’s new 2023 Global Online Marketplaces Report. The Global Online Marketplaces database ranks the 100 largest such marketplaces by 2023 third-party GMV.

Amazon is also No. 1 in the 2022 Digital Commerce 360 Top 1000 database. The Top 1000 ranks North American web merchants by sales.

In addition to Amazon, the top 10 producing the most emissions per month are:

• Taco Bell (107,150,137 grams)
• Target Corp. (84,433,296 grams)
• TripAdvisor (65,606,844 grams)
• eBay Inc. (53,540,341 grams)
• Walmart Inc. (45,943,738 grams)
• Etsy Inc. (35,252,889 grams)
• Nike Inc. (35,047,824 grams)
• Wayfair (32,446,202 grams)
• Lowe’s Co. Inc. (31,670,270 grams)

It was surprising to see West Elm rank sixth in the top 10 websites with the most CO2 produced per visit (3.01 grams), said Daniel Pearson, CEO, KnownHost.

Top Top five companies producing the least CO2 per month:

• Williams Sonoma (21,517 grams)
• Pottery Barn (37,842 grams)
• Aldo (68,845 grams)
• Cesar’s Way (116,421 grams)
• Charlotte Tilbury (169,037 grams)
• NYX Professional Makeup (169,067 grams)

“Especially, as it’s owned by Williams Sonoma Inc. and both Williams Sonoma and Pottery Barn — another Williams-Sonoma  [Inc.] retailer – are ranked joint first for the websites with the lowest CO2 produced per visit (0.01 grams),” he said.

“This can highlight differences in their sustainability practices and provide insight into their environmental performance,” Pearson said. “When retailers within the same parent company produce different CO2 emissions, it presents an opportunity for knowledge sharing and collaboration.”

KnownHost used a seed list of America’s Top 100 online stores in 2023 from software shipment tracker Aftership. KnownHost ran online stores’ websites through the Website Carbon Calculator individually. Each store’s monthly traffic levels were recorded using SaaS company Ahrefs, which is an SEO tool used to search for growing website search traffic. This was multiplied by the amount of CO2 produced per visit to determine the overall amount of CO2 produced each month. The number of trees it takes to absorb CO2 emissions was calculated using a figure from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

How can retailers change tactics?

Once known, retailers can reassess and implement strategies to help reduce their carbon emissions, Pearson said.

“They can look at optimizing website efficiency by streamlining the website’s code and design to reduce page load time and server energy consumption,” he said.

Also, websites should compress images, use caching and minimize HTTP requests, he said. 

Retailers can search for eco-friendly web-hosting services that rely on renewable energy sources to power their servers and offer customers the option to voluntarily offset their shipping emissions by contributing to verified carbon offsetting projects, Pearson said.

Do you rank in our database?

Submit your data and we’ll see where you fit in our next ranking update.

Sign up

Stay on top of the latest developments in the ecommerce industry. Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 Retail News.

Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. Be the first to know when Digital Commerce 360 publishes news content.

The post Data shows online retailers with the highest carbon footprints appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

The Seattle-based giant emitted 71.27 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2022. That’s down 0.4% from the previous year, Amazon said in its annual sustainability report, published July 18. The company achieved the improvement by using more solar and wind to power its operations. It benefited from a decrease in emissions from construction and third-party transportation.

Amazon in recent years has been the biggest corporate buyer of renewable electricity. It uses power purchase agreements to fund development of new solar and wind farms across the globe. Emissions related to electricity purchases fell 29% last year.

Amazon is No. 3 in Digital Commerce 360’s new 2023 Global Online Marketplaces Report. The Global Online Marketplaces database ranks the 100 largest such marketplaces by 2023 third-party GMV.

Amazon is also No. 1 in the 2022 Digital Commerce 360 Top 1000 database. The Top 1000 ranks North American web merchants by sales.

Amazon carbon emissions

The company has pledged to wipe out or offset its contribution to the greenhouse gas emissions warming the planet by 2040. It has also invited other companies to make similar commitments to join what it calls the Climate Pledge. Emissions are up by about 40% since Amazon set the target in 2019. That’s fueled in part by supercharged sales during the pandemic.

But Amazon says its carbon intensity is down 24% during the same period, thanks to the renewables push and the addition of about 9,000 electric vehicles to Amazon’s delivery fleet, among other factors. Carbon intensity is a measure of how much the company emits for every dollar of merchandise sold. Slowing ecommerce growth also helped Amazon cut its carbon emissions for the first time. The company’s revenue grew 9.4% in 2022, a record low.

Sustainability report

The sustainability report comes months after Amazon quietly backed away from the biggest interim goal it had laid out on the road to decarbonizing its logistics business. Called Shipment Zero, the effort was supposed to make half of the company’s shipments carbon-free by 2030, but Amazon retracted it with a brief online statement. Some employees denounced the move during a rally in May outside company headquarters. Amazon said the interim target “no longer made sense” given the Climate Pledge’s more expansive target.

For years, Amazon lagged behind its peers in carbon emissions reporting. But, amid pressure from employees and shareholder groups, the company has stepped up in recent years. It discloses more about its impact and empowering a sustainability team to invest in technologies aimed at curbing carbon emissions.

Criticism about Amazon carbon emissions reporting

Critics say Amazon still undercounts its impact and cheapens its net-zero goal by excluding emissions produced by manufacturers Amazon purchases goods from directly, as well as independent merchants who sell the majority of products on its retail site. In its public accounting of so-called Scope 3 emissions, the company only includes the impact of Amazon-branded products, which the company has said account for about 1% of sales.

In their own Scope 3 carbon accounting, Amazon rivals Walmart Inc. and Target Corp. both estimate the impact of all the items sold from their shelves, making their carbon bills seem artificially large compared with Amazon’s. Walmart’s sales were about 22% higher than Amazon’s in 2021. But because Walmart includes a much wider set of products in its carbon accounting, the Bentonville, Arkansas, company’s Scope 3 emissions were more than twice as large as those at Amazon.

Amazon has said it excludes products from its vendors to avoid double-counting of emissions tracked and reported by those manufacturers. But beginning in 2024, Amazon says it will update its supply-chain standards to require suppliers to share their carbon emissions data with the company and set their own carbon goals.

Do you rank in our databases?

Submit your data and we’ll see where you fit in our next ranking update.

Sign up

Stay on top of the latest developments in the ecommerce industry. Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 Retail News.

Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. Be the first to know when Digital Commerce 360 publishes news content.

The post Amazon: carbon emissions fell in 2022 for first time appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.