Analyzes & Data

Although European countries have historically been among the largest private label markets in the world, 2022 and Q1 2023 have seen a major shift towards private labels in most markets. Private labels have become a major P&L lever for retailers, as is the case with Mercadona, which derives more than 70% of business from private labels. mind Retail has identified 4 examples of strategic developments in the food sector.

Criteo, Publicis with Citrus Ad, Mirakl Ads, Microsoft with PromoteIQ, Casino with RelevanC and Tryger are the main players offering technologies dedicated to retail media in France. When did they launch their activity? Who are their main customers? What are their pricing models?

Whilst Amazon's e-commerce business is losing momentum (down by 0.1% year-on-year), the AWS cloud service is recording the slowest growth since 2015. To improve profitability, the tech giant is introducing a series of AI-based tools for businesses. Amazon's year-on-year revenue growth was 11%, driven by the marketplace and the cloud.

Rising costs, inflation, purchasing power. After 2 years of crazy growth boosted by Covid-19, 2022 was a good one in terms of sales, but not profitability. For the 2023 edition of this exclusive study, mind Retail analysed the financial health of the world's "Top 10" food retailers since 2017, based on main financial indicators. In terms of business model, the most omnichannel retailers are approaching the online capacity ceiling, approximately between 15% and 20% of a business. Whilst profitability of Target and Walmart has dramatically slowed, the business models of Costco, Ahold Delhaize and Kroger have been more resilient. 

Since 2021, second-hand offers have been multiplying among fashion retailers. In an analysis carried out by mind Retail among some 30 retailers, we see that the models and their associated profitability vary between the different market segments (mass, mid-market, luxury). While this activity is profitable for premium brands, it has also become a major loyalty lever at a time when acquisition costs are exploding.

Since 1 January 2022, Article 35 of the French AGEC law has obliged producers, importers and distributors to reuse, re-use or recycle unsold non-food products. They can no longer destroy them. Faced with this new challenge, how can fashion retailers act upstream to manage their production and reduce unsold products?

Since spring 2022, H&M and Zara adopted a policy of charging for returns on online purchases, thus setting standards for standardisation of e-commerce market. Some pure-players are following this lead, marking a new evolution in this competitive market. mind Retail summarises the commercial policies of the main online fashion players in Europe and in the U.S.A.

In France, the participation rate of online shoppers increased during Black Friday 2022, held this year on November 25. The data provided to mind Retail by Foxintelligence, which tracks e-shoppers' profiles and purchasing behavior, highlights that toys and high tech remained the big winners of the 2022 edition. They also highlight that more e-shoppers participated in that edition, with a higher average spending.

For the 2nd edition of our European e-commerce barometer, mind Retail synthesised market data from the online retail federations and the players. This study includes 4 major categories - food, fashion, household appliances and furniture - as well as 7 countries: Germany, Italy, France, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Switzerland and Spain.  
This illustrates the lead of the U.K. and the Netherlands over the Latin countries on the panel. We show that the glass ceiling will soon be reached in categories of specialised distribution.

In our study of 100 e-commerce sites worldwide, mind Retail analysed the relationships between retailers' websites and marketplaces alongside service providers responsible for selling their advertising inventory in programmatic mode. E-retail media continues to grow at a significant rate 2 years after the pandemic. Online shopping and associated advertising are now a seamless fact of life for consumers. According to the latest GroupM report in September 2022, retail media is expected to reach US$101 billion in 2022 worldwide, up by 15% year-on-year. This segment accounted for 18% of global digital advertising revenue in 2021. Although the trend is growing, there remain few retailers who are involved in programmatic advertising sales. We read this as a sign of a relative maturity in the market. Out of a study of 100 e-commerce sites, only 22 offered an ‘ads.txt’ file.