From Omicron’s impact on January visits to rising gas prices in March, the first quarter of 2022 was rife with challenges. Yet, even within this difficult environment, some retailers outperformed and showed unique levels of strength in the face of an ever-mounting series of obstacles. Here are some of the retailers and segments that thrived in an especially difficult Q1.
It was never going to be a straightforward recovery from the global pandemic for the airline industry, too many years of experience and previous events can confirm that there will be bumps on the road to a full recovery. The last week has been challenging in Europe with staff shortages across many airlines and airports while in China the zero-Covid strategy continues to have millions of people locked in at home. Despite those challenges, this week’s airline capacity continues to creep up with another 1.5 million seats added, a modest 1.5% increase week-on-week but edging ever higher.
When Jawed Karim, the co-founder of YouTube, posted the now-infamous video of himself at the zoo in front of two adorable elephants, there’s no way he could’ve predicted the meteoric rise of his creation. If you would’ve asked him in 2005 how many monthly active users YouTube would have in 2022, there’s no way he would’ve said more than two billion. If you questioned him about the amount of video people would upload to YouTube, 500 hours a minute probably wouldn’t have been on the tip of his tongue.
In an increasingly crowded food delivery marketplace, Gopuff is trying to carve out a niche by vertically integrating and positioning itself as the instant source for smaller-ticket convenience items. But how differentiated is the company’s model, and is there room for growth? Recent reports of layoffs, shift reductions, and fee increases indicate that the model may not be sustainable. In today’s Insight Flash, we dig into the drivers of Gopuff’s performance, including growth by market tenure, price per items trends, and items per basket.
Before the impending IPO of GoTo Group, it’s about time to update the latest market share of Southeast Asia’s biggest super apps: Gojek and Grab. At Measurable AI, we build and own a unique consumer panel and are the largest transactional email receipt data provider for the emerging markets, delivering both aggregated and raw data. In our previous article, we reviewed the market share of Gojek and Grab’s ride-hailing business across the year of 2021. Our results indicate a close score between the two rivals, with Grab leading by a slight advantage in total revenues in Indonesia last year.
Of the many ways that the pandemic has shifted our habits, one that is especially noteworthy in consumer behavior is how we buy our groceries. When the first wave of the corona virus caused many of us to stay at home, demand for groceries, meals, and other packaged goods delivered right to our door skyrocketed. Prior to 2020, the eGrocery category was a “nice-to-have” rather than a “must-have” for most. It is now growing rapidly—especially with younger generations.
While retail advertising took a hit in early 2020 at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, ad spend has fully bounced back and reached new heights in 2021. Our new State of Retail Advertising report, available now as a free download, looks at how top retailers in the United Kingdom are adjusting their ad spend and creative strategies in such a competitive and ever-evolving market. Outside of a small dip at the start of the pandemic, investment in Retail advertising has grown steadily in recent years. In 2021, retail advertisers spent $870 million, an increase
Pathmatics data reveals that March’s top 10 advertisers spent more than $136 million on Hulu, Pluto TV, Tubi, Peacock, Paramount+, and other OTT streaming services, with creatives garnering more than five billion impressions. The month’s top three categories were Financial Services, Health & Wellness, and Auto, which ranked in the top three for the first time overall. Let’s see how the top 10 advertisers were spending on OTT in the last month.
Fast fashion retailer Shein made headlines earlier this week with a reported $1B capital raise at a staggering $100B valuation. But is success a shoo-in for Shein? In today’s Insight Flash, we examine how Shein’s market share has evolved in the US and UK, what the average basket looks like versus competitors, and whether return customer behavior signals staying power. Shein has grown quickly to become one of the most popular Fast Fashion brands in the US and the UK.
Around this time two years ago, it was becoming clear that COVID wasn’t going away so quickly. Large corporations and smaller companies that a few months before the pandemic would not have dreamed of allowing work-from-home (WFH), were adjusting to managing a fully remote workforce. And, workers were learning that they enjoyed getting back almost an hour a day that was previously spent commuting while being just as productive.
The COVID-19 pandemic dramatically changed our personal care routines. With many of us spending more time at home and wearing masks when we go out, consumers are swapping out full-face foundation and concealer for serums, oils, and creams. That’s great news for skincare brands, but it’s unclear how this trend will change as normal life resumes. We do know that big skincare and personal hygiene advertisers Curology, Neutrogena, and CeraVe have all been increasing their ad investments since 2021, so let’s see what has changed and just how much they’ve been spending from January through the first week of March 2022.
Always, almost annoyingly, in the spotlight, yet undeniably holding our interest — FANG, FAANG, FANGMA, FANGMAT companies. And of course their associated stocks: highly priced, some say overvalued, dominating, and also surrounded by speculation. Right now, FANGMAT = Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Google’s parent company Alphabet, Microsoft, Apple, and Tesla. FANGMAT includes the five most heavily weighted stocks in the S&P 500, and accounts for over 25% of constituents by weight. And while valuations seem high, portfolios underperformed without them.
The pandemic has thrust work-from-home into mainstream culture and has had an enormous impact on where people choose to live. Now that companies are looking to bring staff back into the offices, it might prove more difficult than they had once thought. The figure above shows the share of workers residing in a city other than their company’s location. Interestingly, 2021 showed a bit of a reversal in the work-from-home trend, with the percentage of decentralized workers decreasing slightly.
Over the past couple of years, buying second-hand clothes has become mainstream – and the pandemic seems to have given the sector a further boost. We dove into foot traffic of several leading brick and mortar apparel resellers to find out how the rise in thrifting is impacting visits to second-hand stores. The second-hand apparel market in the United States has been growing for quite some time, with consumers citing ethical, financial, and environmental concerns as their motivation for visiting thrift shopping.
Crypto app installs grew by over 400% year over year in 2021 – but the gender ratio between male and female users has barely moved from 80:20 since the beginning of 2020. I reviewed demographic data from Apptopia's Audience Intelligence for the top 5 Crypto apps in the United States: Coinbase (Exchange), FTX, Crypto.com, Trust Wallet and Voyager. The one moment in time when one of these apps had an active female user base of more than 30% was July through November 2020, for Trust Wallet (owned by Binance).
While the early months of the pandemic were defined by retail restrictions for top performing malls and retail centers, 2021 and early 2022 need to be understood with the wider context of volatility engulfing the space. Visits saw a strong return in the summer, before the Delta variant cut off the growth. Then October saw a boost before November and December were affected by supply chain challenges, inflation and the onset of Omicron.
With higher gas prices definitely a pain point for consumers, higher gas prices may fuel concern for retailers. Higher gas prices usually reduce a retailer’s ability to collect margin on the purchase, in addition to limiting funds left in shopper wallets for discretionary purchases. In today’s Insight Flash, we take advantage of Consumer Edge’s unique ability to separate out fuel purchases at gas pumps from other purchases inside the retailer’s store in both the US and UK in order to examine how much the recent price increases have affected the mix of fuel versus ex-fuel sales
BeReal is a social/photo app you designed to share your authentic life with close friends. Year-to-date, its monthly active users have grown 315%. The app launched in December 2019 but 65% of its lifetime downloads have taken place this calendar year. So what it BeReal and why is it different than other social media apps? Much like Dispo, which also launched in December 2019, the app's goal is to get away from detailed curation and professional influencers.
App IQ is the industry’s first comprehensive taxonomy — replacing antiquated app store categories with unparalleled granularity into the mobile ecosystem across 19 genres and 152 subgenres. Our State of Media & Entertainment report is an example of App IQ in action, allowing us to dive deep to uncover nuanced insights publishers need to succeed on mobile
It will soon be five years since Amazon acquired Whole Foods Market and made its first foray into the brick and mortar grocery space. We dove into the data to understand Whole Foods’ evolution since the acquisition, see how the legacy grocery is recovering from the pandemic’s impact and determine what may be next for the Whole Foods-Amazon partnership.
