Rebecca Day

E-commerce’s share of overall retail “has reset lower than the peak last year,” said Shopify Chief Financial Officer Amy Shapero on a Thursday earnings call. The company expects Q4 to generate most of its 2021 revenue, but the revenue spread “will be more evenly distributed across the four quarters than it has been historically,” she said, citing potential impact from supply chain delays and higher costs for materials, labor, shipping and advertising. Spending for Black Friday and Cyber Monday “may be pulled forward.” Shopify expects its gross merchandise value to grow “substantially faster than the commerce market," Shapero said. E-commerce share remains several points higher than two years ago and is “poised to resume a more normalized rate of growth,” she said. In a reflection of in-store retail’s 2021 rebound, CEO Harley Finkelstein pitched traditional retailers on the call, saying the brick-and-mortar segment “reclaimed some of its share of retail.” He touted Shopify’s new point-of-sale software that supports in-store retail, allowing merchants to “transition seamlessly” between online and off-line selling. The e-commerce platform company’s revenue grew 46% year on year in Q3 to $1.1 billion. In social commerce, Shopify expanded its relationship with TikTok in the quarter, introducing product discovery and shopping tabs, linking products directly to a merchant’s online store for checkout, said Finkelstein. He also cited integration with Spotify, allowing artists to sync their product catalogs and showcase products on their Spotify profile (see 2110270043). The economy “remains resilient,” said Shapero, but with consumer spending on services and off-line retail expanding, e-commerce “is growing at a more normalized pace relative to 2020.” Shopify, in turn, expects to “grow revenue rapidly in 2021, but at a lower rate than in 2020.” Shares closed 7% higher Thursday at $1,457.

Despite expected product shortages, rising prices and supply chain constraints, the National Retail Federation forecast the highest volume holiday retail sales season on record Wednesday, saying combined in-store and online sales Nov. 1-Dec. 31 will surge 8.5%-10.5% year on year to $843.4 billion-$859 billion.

After COVID-19 “choppiness” in the first half, Spotify grew monthly active users (MAU) by 19% year on year to 381 million in Q3, said CEO Daniel Ek on a Wednesday earnings call. Revenue grew 27% year on year to $2.9 billion, led by $2.6 billion in premium subscriber revenue, said a Wednesday shareholder letter.

“It’ll be an interesting holiday for a lot of companies,” said Logitech Chief Financial Officer Nate Olmstead on a fiscal Q2 earnings call Tuesday. Olmstead cited “tightness” in supply at the store level and said companies need to “make sure they can get on shelf,” in response to an analyst question on manufacturers' ability to meet demand in the holiday quarter. Q2 ended Sept. 30.

Smartphone shipments, which grew year on year in Q2 despite the spread of the COVID-19 delta variant and component shortages, will turn negative in Q3 due to continued supply shortages and reduced demand, said Omdia analyst Jusy Hong in a Monday report.

The promise of scale is the main benefit behind Azione Unlimited’s joining with Nationwide Marketing Group, Azione President Richard Glikes told Consumer Electronics Daily Friday. The buying groups said Wednesday they're combining to create a "whole-home platform" for the custom integration channel.

Consumers want better cross-channel shopping, said Leah Logan, Inmar Intelligence vice president-media products, on a Thursday Adweek webinar. Three-fourths of survey respondents said retailers should allow seamless access to offers, and 70% wanted offers or promotions integrated in a one-click add-to-cart option. More than half were open to being prompted about relevant offers while shopping and to being steered to relevant areas in the store based on interests or season, Logan said. Nine in 10 consumers are more likely to shop brands that provide relevant offers and recommendations; 71% expect companies to communicate with them in real time “and solve their issues quickly.” A screen grab showed the example of a beauty company sending an instant message to a customer asking if she would like to get a free sample of hand soap and then prompting her to load the sample to her loyalty card. Features shoppers want within a social media shopping experience are add-to-cart (64%), shopable livestreams (47%), "pre-scripted" buying recommendations (44%) and influencer shopping integrations (37%). Among the latest shopping technologies, 54% of shoppers said they're using buy online, pick up in store, 41% use checkout-free technology, 27% use virtual reality/augmented reality, half use curbside pickup and half use ads or offers from geo-targeted marketing when they arrive in store, she said. Use of VR and AR could be lagging "because we haven’t quite figured out how to add enough value there” or that “consumers just aren’t ready yet," Logan said. Currently, the most important shopping channel to consumers is social commerce, followed by traditional retail, mobile commerce and e-commerce, she said. Some 65% of consumers are willing to share personal information in exchange for more personalized shopping experiences, offers and other benefits, Logan said.

Widespread reports of out-of-stock items are pushing consumers to shop earlier for the holidays this year in what’s being forecast as a strong season for retail, various surveys showed this week.

A year after announcing the departure of CEO Tabatha O’Connor when her contract wasn’t renewed, CEDIA named former Recording Academy executive Daryl Friedman CEO Wednesday, to fill a role that the CEDIA board has played since O'Connor's departure. Friedman begins a three-year term Nov. 29. Friedman’s “decades” of nonprofit experience in trade association leadership includes overseeing membership, advocacy, industry relations and the technical wing for the Recording Academy, the same kind of “skill set” he will bring to the custom electronics industry association, Friedman told us Tuesday under embargo. He also brings knowledge of the audio industry, he said, citing the Producers and Engineers Wing’s 2014 endorsement of CEDIA’s high-res audio training program for home technology professionals. On his vision for CEDIA’s future, Friedman said he would like CEDIA to become “a household name” for anyone looking to install residential technology. “We want them to use a professional integrator, we want them to use a knowledgeable, certified integrator, and that’s an area I can help with,” he said. The COVID-19 pandemic caused a “once in a generation shift in mentality about residential technology,” Friedman said. “Because of what we just went through, people have an awareness of the need for the home technology sector,” which creates a more mainstream opportunity for the channel to address home-based technology needs for education, wellness, security and safety and energy efficiency. “CEDIA can be a catalyst to help it move it even more mainstream,” he said. On challenges facing the organization, Friedman said, “Coming out of the pandemic, if we miss this moment in time when everybody is thinking about the home in a different way, it’ll be a very big lost opportunity.” He plans to travel to meet with CEDIA members to learn what’s important to them and create a strategic plan that capitalizes on the opportunity created by the pandemic.

Despite higher prices and a surge in out-of-stock items due to the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. online holiday season sales will jump 10% year on year to a record $207 billion, Adobe forecast Wednesday. Globally, e-commerce sales will rise 11% to over $4 trillion Nov. 1-Dec. 31, also a new milestone, it said.