The 2026 selling season is about to look very different. We’re at peak adoption of consumers using LLMs, like ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, and Perplexity, to shop. Because of this, the consumer journey and path to conversion are now more complex. The trust consumers place in LLM responses to their shopping prompts is surprisingly high, with most shoppers relying entirely on the AI to shape the decision all the way to purchase. 

95% of shoppers who get a product recommendation from an LLM won’t visit a brand or retailer website to verify it. Among 18–27 year olds, 64% buy on the recommendation alone.

Twelve months ago, most brands were still focused on ranking in traditional search results. Consumer shopping behavior has changed more in the last 12 months than in the previous five years combined. That shift is going to define how every peak event plays out in 2026. 

Amazon and Walmart are blocking LLMs from crawling their product data. So, keeping consumers within the Amazon ecosystem to maximize Prime Day returns and overall conversions is critical. 52% of all U.S. consumers still begin their online product searches directly on Amazon,^¹ which is reassuring for Prime Day activity. But when we factor in the LLM component, our strategy to maximize Prime returns gets more nuanced. 

Previously, we wouldn’t have as heavily considered our clients’ .com websites as part of the Prime Day journey, but if LLM recommendations are relying on Google and other general product data feeds, then ensuring product data hygiene from those outside sources is critical. 

How should brands reach shoppers on Amazon and LLMs at the same time?

• For consumers already starting their journey in Amazon search, keep them engaged, targeted with appropriate content and ads, and slam dunk the conversion. 
• For consumers starting their search in LLMs, make sure client .com product data feeds are accurate, updated, and organized so the right recommendations entice consumers to seek out the shopping moment outside the LLM. 

There’s more to this year’s approach. Prime Day lands June 23–26 this year, the earliest window since 2021 and the second year at four full days.¹

Back-to-school demand is already overlapping with it. BFCM is less than six months out. And the LLMs shoppers are using to find and compare products have improved significantly since last peak season.

LLMs are pulling richer product details, making more accurate comparisons, and starting to support transactions directly. The brands and retailers who will perform best during peak 2026 are the ones whose catalogs are accurate, structured, and available everywhere the AI is looking. 

At Rithum, we work across 900+ channels with brands and retailers preparing for these events right now. We’re deep in the planning alongside them, from media strategy to product data to channel prioritization, and everything below reflects what we’re seeing and recommending heading into peak selling in 2026. 

What are the major 2026 peak sales events, and when do they happen? 

• Amazon Prime Day: June 23–26¹ 
• Back-to-school: May through September (peaks during and after Prime Day) 
• Labor Day: September 1 
• Amazon Prime Big Deal Days: October (dates TBD; October 7–8 in 2025) 
• Singles’ Day: November 11 
• Black Friday: November 27 
• Cyber Monday: November 30 

Beyond the timeline, two things connect every event on this list: AI is reshaping how shoppers discover products, and the brands with accurate, structured data across channels will capture more demand than those without it. 

How should brands prepare for Amazon Prime Day in June 2026? 

Prime Day runs June 23–26 across 35 categories, with deals dropping three times daily and new inventory going live every five minutes during peak hours.¹ Amazon is putting particular emphasis on fresh groceries and household essentials, building on 4 billion grocery and essentials items delivered via same-day delivery over the past year.² 

Last year’s Prime Day (July 8–11) generated $24.1 billion in U.S. online spend, up 30.3% year over year.³ Four of the top five items sold were household or grocery products.⁴ School supplies rose 175% and dorm essentials 84%.³

Across our own client base, the four-day format shifted buying patterns. Shoppers browsed Days 1 and 2, then converted late, with Day 4 GMV jumping 38% year over year. 

One Rithum client pivoted mid-event to back-to-school bundles and optimized product titles on Day 2. That shift drove a 15% sales lift over the prior year. The teams that adjusted in real time outperformed the ones that set a plan and left it. And that was before AI was deeply embedded in the Prime Day experience. 

What role does Alexa AI play in Prime Day 2026? 

This year, Alexa for Shopping (formerly Rufus) will sit directly in the Amazon search bar, search results, and product detail pages for every U.S. customer.¹ Amazon has told sellers that Alexa pulls from listing content to answer shopper questions and make recommendations. If your product attributes are incomplete, Alexa will recommend someone else’s.

During Prime Day 2025, shoppers who engaged Rufus were 60% more likely to complete a purchase. Alexa now helps shoppers build personalized deal guides, set price alerts, trigger auto-buy at target prices, and review 365-day price history. Every one of those features pulls from your product data. If your titles, descriptions, and images aren’t accurate, you’re not showing up in those conversations. 

Rithum’s retail media advertising connects spend to product performance across Amazon, Walmart, and Target so you can shift budgets while the event is live. Marketplace listings keep data accurate across 900+ channels so you can coordinate pricing, inventory, and promotions across Amazon and every channel competing for the same shopper during Prime Day. And inventory management prevents oversells and stockouts during the exact hours demand spikes. 

How does AI shopping change peak season strategy in 2026? 

When AI gets product information wrong, 58% of shoppers lose trust in the brand itself, not the AI tool that served it. And shoppers aren’t loyal to a single AI platform either: ChatGPT’s daily active user share has fallen steadily since early 2025, Gemini has more than doubled its share in the same period, and 20% of AI users now regularly use two or more chatbot apps. Brands that only optimize for one platform are leaving reach on the table. 

The shopping capabilities on these platforms have also matured. Perplexity offers one-click checkout through Buy with Pro and PayPal integration across thousands of merchants. Gemini supports agentic checkout through Google Pay, including auto-buy when a price target is met.

ChatGPT launched native shopping features in late 2025. These are live commerce channels, and every one of them relies on structured product data to generate accurate recommendations. 

We built ChatGPT and Perplexity Feeds for this: product data compiled, optimized for LLMs, and delivered for ingestion so your brand controls how it appears in AI recommendations. Our upcoming GEO (generative engine optimization) pilot provides a way to track how products appear, move, and compare within AI-driven results. Rithum and Stripe are also building the commerce infrastructure for transactions that happen inside the AI conversation itself. 

The path from catalog accuracy to LLM delivery to in-conversation purchase is what determines whether your products get recommended during peak season. Every step depends on the one before it, and most brands are still missing at least one. 

How early does back-to-school shopping start in 2026, and what should sellers prioritize? 

Back-to-school retail is projected at $85.42 billion in 2026, up 3.3% year over year.⁵ 67% of families started buying by early July 2025, up from 55% the year before. With Prime Day now in June and school supplies already among its top-performing categories (up 175% during Prime Day 2025³), back-to-school effectively starts during Prime Day. 

84% of parents say prices are too high. 82% are prioritizing value over brand. But 80% still say buying the specific products their child wants is important.⁵ Parents are cutting back on clothing and switching to store brands in some categories while spending full price in others. Brands that understand which of their products fall into which bucket can plan promotions accordingly. 

We recommend spreading promotions across May through September rather than concentrating spend in a single burst. Rithum’s product catalog feeds push near-real-time updates to price, stock, and product data across every channel where shoppers and AI agents are looking. For brands selling across multiple regions, automatic localization for language, currency, and regional specs keeps listings accurate without rebuilding feeds from scratch. 

What should brands plan for across Q4 2026 peak events? 

September through November packs five major sales events into 90 days, and performance in each one can help shape the strategy for the next. 

Labor Day (September 1) — The last major sales moment before Q4 takes over.

Brands use it to move seasonal stock in a smart way. They set pricing rules based on demand signals, not flat markdowns. This helps them carry less dead stock into the holiday rush.

Rithum automates promotional updates across marketplaces. Order management routes to the best fulfillment location based on your rules. 

Prime Big Deal Days (October) — Amazon’s separate October event, distinct from summer Prime Day.

The 2025 event (October 7–8) outperformed the prior year globally.³ Shoppers complete holiday purchases here, and the performance data directly informs Q4 decisions. Brands that connected product feeds to LLM platforms earlier in the year will have compounding advantages by October.

Singles’ Day (November 11) — $202 billion across major Chinese platforms in 2024, making it the largest single shopping event globally.³

The event continues to expand into Southeast Asia, where Chinese ecommerce players now account for up to 50% of B2C GMV in key markets. U.S. and European retailers saw an 11% year-over-year lift in influenced revenue last November. Rithum supports 600+ global marketplaces with built-in localization and dedicated account strategists across EU, US, and APAC. 

How should brands prepare for Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2026? 

Black Friday (November 27) and Cyber Monday (November 30) — BFCM 2024 delivered $10.8 billion (Black Friday) and a record $14.3 billion (Cyber Monday 2025).³

Promotions started climbing November 16 last year, nearly two weeks early. Mobile drove 56% of online holiday spend last season.³ AI-assisted shopping volume, which surged during Prime Day 2025, will be even higher by November as more consumers adopt LLM-based product discovery. 

During BFCM 2025, we advised clients to spread budgets from October through December. Clients increased spending by only 3% on average and still hit efficiency goals with a 1.7 advertising cost of sales. Here’s how those Prime Day lessons apply to holiday planning. 

Across all of these events, the operational requirements are the same: accurate product data everywhere you sell, budgets that can move in real time, and listings that don’t break under pressure. Rithum’s product catalog feeds deliver data to every channel and AI platform in the right format. Paid search and shopping ads optimize across Google, Microsoft, and Meta with feed-level precision. And marketplace listings catches broken or non-compliant listings before they cost you revenue during the highest-traffic weeks of the year. 

How do you prepare for peak season across 900+ channels at once? 

Our 2026 Commerce Readiness Index found that 43% of retailers and 37% of brands are prioritizing AI enablement across operations. The best teams have one thing in common at their busiest times. Product data, ad spend, inventory, and fulfillment all run in a single connected system. When something changes mid-event, they can act right away. 

Rithum brings all of that into one platform across 900+ channels and AI platforms. If you’re planning for peak 2026 and want to talk through your approach, our team is here. 

Footnotes
¹ Amazon Press Release, “Mark Your Calendars: Amazon Announces Prime Day Event from June 23–26,” June 2026. press.aboutamazon.com
² Forbes, “Amazon Prime Day 2026 Moves to June—This Time With Alexa AI Powering the Cart,” June 2026. forbes.com
³ Adobe Analytics, various reports including “Prime Day Event Drove $24 Billion in Online Spend Across U.S. Retailers” (July 2025), Black Friday 2024, Cyber Monday 2025, holiday season 2025, and Singles’ Day data. business.adobe.com
⁴ Numerator, “Amazon Prime Day 2025 First Half Results,” July 2025
⁵ MRI-Simmons, “Back-to-School Shopping Trends of the 2026 Season,” May 2026. mrisimmons.com | Accio, “Back-to-School Trends 2026.” accio.com

The post How to prepare for peak season 2026: Prime Day to BFCM appeared first on Rithum.

Brands already using Rithum can connect to Allegro directly from their existing dashboard and manage it alongside every other marketplace channel. You can connect Allegro through the Rithum platform you already use to manage marketplaces, without rebuilding your product feeds or introducing new systems. 

Central and Eastern Europe is now accessible through the same setup brands already use. Most of what made expansion difficult has been removed. 

Central and Eastern Europe has outgrown its reputation as a secondary market  

Growth in Western European ecommerce is slowing. The markets are crowded, customer acquisition is expensive, and brands are fighting harder for smaller gains. A lot of that pressure disappears when you look east. 

Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, and neighboring markets are digitally mature, mobile-first economies with strong purchasing power and high trust in online shopping. Allegro alone provides access to a €20B ecommerce market and more than 21 million active buyers. Brand awareness reaches 88% in Poland and 75% in Czechia, and for many shoppers in the region, Allegro is where the buying journey starts.  

“Polish consumers believe that if something doesn’t exist on Allegro, it doesn’t exist at all,” said Urszula Drej, a Team Leader at Allegro during Rithum’s annual Amsterdam dinner. “Over 60% of Polish shoppers choose Allegro over Google as their starting point. They treat it like a search engine and finalize their purchasing decisions there.” 

Sellers on Allegro have a 2.5x greater chance of making a sale compared to relying solely on their own online store. That demand already exists. Brands entering through Allegro are reaching customers they would not reach otherwise.  

Dyson is already seeing momentum as it expands into Poland through the integration. 

We’re proud of the integration Rithum and Allegro have built to help bring our products to the Polish market.

— eCommerce Manager, Dyson 

The integration removes the friction that used to slow down market entry  

Expanding into Central and Eastern Europe through Allegro is handled entirely within your current Rithum setup. No separate integration project required. 

• Your catalogue syncs without a rebuild. Product data, descriptions, pricing rules, and stock levels push directly from Rithum into Allegro in your own language and currency. Listings go live faster, with fewer errors and no duplicate feeds to maintain. 
• All marketplace operations stay in one place. Allegro appears alongside your other channels in the Rithum dashboard. You manage everything from one login, and stock updates sync automatically across channels. 
• Getting started doesn’t require a new operational layer. You’re adding a channel to infrastructure that’s already in place. 

Allegro One Fulfilment covers logistics and compliance on the ground 

Cross-border fulfilment and regulatory compliance are where most international expansions lose momentum. Allegro’s fulfilment network covers both. 

With Allegro One Fulfilment, brands ship stock to a regional warehouse and Allegro manages the rest — storage, delivery across multiple shipping options tailored to local preferences, customer service, and return handling. Delivery times shrink, cross-border complexity drops, and customers get a local-feeling experience without your team building infrastructure in the region. 

Allegro also supports automated handling of product safety and regulatory compliance, including GPSR, reducing the legal and operational lift on your side. 

The Welcome Programme gives new sellers room to test before committing 

Allegro offers an onboarding incentive for brands entering through Rithum that takes a lot of the financial risk off the table early. 

• 100% commission discount for the first 90 days, so brands can validate demand and optimize listings before standard fees apply 
• Allegro Ads credit to build visibility and gain traction from day one 

That gives teams space to learn the market before fully committing to it. 

Rithum provides the operational layer and Allegro provides the demand  

Rithum manages catalogue syndication, inventory, and multi-channel workflow. Allegro delivers a large, high-intent buyer base and a fulfilment network built for the region. Paired together, brands get reach without taking on operational complexity. 

If you’re already using Rithum, you can get access to over twenty million active buyers on Allegro with just a few clicks. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel. You can use what already exists.

— Urszula Drej, Allegro

Your existing data structure and processes stay intact. You gain immediate access to an active customer base in a region where competition from global brands is still lower than in Western Europe, and you do it without building separate infrastructure. 

Getting started is already built into your Rithum setup 

If you use Rithum, the tools to start selling on Allegro are already available to you. Connect the channel, sync your catalogue, and start reaching buyers across Central Europe with your current team and systems. 

Central and Eastern Europe is ready for your brand. Now your systems are too. 

The post Allegro and Rithum now share a single integration for Central European expansion  appeared first on Rithum.

Second in a series on building stronger AI-driven commerce with Rithum

At a glance  

• AI shopping agents evaluate your product data before they evaluate your brand. Incomplete or poorly structured catalogs get excluded from recommendations before a shopper sees them.  
• Most brands still rely on AI platforms scraping their product pages. Direct, structured feeds give you control over how products are represented inside AI environments.  
• Reaching an AI response and earning the recommendation are different problems. Without visibility into AI platform performance, improving placement becomes guesswork.  
• Payment infrastructure inside AI shopping environments is being built now. Brands that address the earlier stages will be positioned to capture those transactions as they scale.  

AI agents are already shaping what consumers see and buy. 70% of consumers have used an LLM to shop in the last three months, and 19% are now purchasing from brands they’d never encountered before those recommendations. But when it comes to making sure your products appear in those results, you’re operating against a black box. Are consumers seeing your products? Are they clicking? How will they purchase in an AI-driven environment? 

Demystifying that black box comes down to four stages: AI-ready product data, LLM connection, monitoring and optimization for AI engines, and in-LLM payments. Each one feeds the next. A gap at any stage means a leaky bucket for everything that follows. 

With Rithum, you can address each stage of the agentic commerce funnel today and prepare for where the space is heading next. 

Bad catalog data keeps products out of AI recommendations

AI shopping agents match product attributes against a shopper’s query. Missing specifications, inconsistent formatting, or outdated inventory signals knock products out of results entirely. 

When an AI assistant returns incorrect product information, shoppers blame your brand. Catalog quality becomes a brand trust issue, not just an operational one. Find out exactly what it’s costing you. 

The work on catalog structure, attribute coverage, and category alignment usually happens earlier in this process. Tools like Catalog Assist and Magic Mapper focus on those areas, handling attribute gaps and cross-channel categorization so product data is usable across AI-driven environments. With your catalog complete, structured, and current, you can tackle the remaining stages of the funnel with reliable inputs. 

Scraped data adds risk you cannot control  

AI platforms still rely heavily on crawling websites, marketplace listings, and third-party sources to assemble product information. Inconsistencies follow. Pricing, availability, and product descriptions can all drift away from the current state of your catalog.  

When that happens, the AI response reflects whatever information it was able to gather, not the current reality of your inventory. Very few shoppers click through to verify those details elsewhere, which turns the AI output into the primary version of the product. 

Rithum replaces that with direct, structured feeds into AI platforms. Rithum’s ChatGPT and Perplexity Feeds get your product data live and accurate on LLMs in three steps: your data is compiled into a feed, that feed is optimized for LLMs, then delivered directly for ingestion. Your brand owns its presence on LLMs instead of leaving it to crawlers. 

Rithum’s Stripe partnership extends this further by allowing brands to connect once and distribute product data across multiple AI platforms as they come online. Instead of building new integrations for each new surface, you can test across an assortment of LLMs and understand the ROI, all while keeping your product data updated and aligned. 

Getting into the system is not the same as getting selected  

AI-generated responses return a limited set of recommendations. Products compete for inclusion in that shortlist, and small differences in product data, relevance, or confidence signals can determine which products appear. 

Your feed is not a set-it-and-forget-it deliverable. You need to understand how your products are ranking across AI platforms and how those rankings shift over time.  

Our upcoming GEO (generative engine optimization) capabilities provide a way to track how products appear, move, and compare within AI-driven results. 

But monitoring only addresses half of the equation. Once you understand how you’re ranking, you need a way to improve those rankings. 

Rithum’s upcoming Performance Lab translates those signals into specific optimizations to improve how products appear in LLMs. Between GEO and Performance Lab, brands can move from “live but invisible in recommendations” to earning placement where it actually drives revenue. 

Because Rithum connects monitoring and catalog management in one place, you can act on performance signals directly. No exporting data, no cross-referencing tools, no guessing what to fix. There are plenty of myths about how agentic AI actually works. One of the most costly is assuming that presence alone drives results. 

Agentic checkout infrastructure is taking shape  

Payment is the final stage of the funnel: a shopper completes a purchase inside the same environment where they found the product. 

The current state of in-LLM checkout is uneven. Some platforms are testing in-conversation transactions, others are still building toward it, and some LLMs, including ChatGPT, have moved away from native in-chat checkout toward third-party app integrations instead. 

Rithum’s Stripe partnership provides the infrastructure for this layer. Product data flows from Rithum into AI platforms. When a transaction occurs, Stripe processes the payment while Rithum handles the necessary inventory updates and order orchestration. The brand stays the merchant of record and retains control of the post-purchase experience. 

Google’s UCP, available through Rithum’s Google Shopping feeds, opens another route, allowing brands to opt products into agentic checkout through AI-enabled search and Google Shopping, with support for loyalty programs and order management.  

Checkout only functions when the upstream stages are already working. Catalog data, platform access, and product-level performance all shape whether a shopper reaches the point of transaction. Getting those right now is the most direct path to capturing agentic commerce revenue as it grows. 

Rithum connects the full agentic commerce funnel  

Agentic commerce does not reward partial readiness. Every stage you leave unaddressed leaks value from the funnel. The teams gaining ground are the ones connecting these stages rather than running them as separate workstreams. 

Rithum and its upcoming agentic commerce capabilities connect these stages inside a single platform. Catalog improvements flow into AI feeds. Feed performance is measured. Optimization updates feed back into the catalog. When transactions occur, performance signals inform the next set of improvements. 

That full loop runs on one of the largest commerce datasets available: $50B+ in annual GMV, billions of SKU updates, and 3 out of 4 AI-driven optimizations accepted by clients. The scale and breadth to cover the full funnel from product data to AI-driven sale, in one system. 

The post How Rithum supports every stage of the agentic commerce funnel appeared first on Rithum.

At a glance: 

• Shoppers who get a clear explanation of why an AI recommended a product are nearly 2x more likely to buy without verifying anywhere else. 
• Only 32% of shoppers named accuracy as the top trust-builder in AI recommendations. 49% chose a clear explanation of why a product was selected. 
• 47% of 28-to-43-year-olds say AI makes them faster decision-makers. Shoppers “very familiar” with AI tools are 3x more likely to purchase without verification. 
• When product data is wrong or incomplete, 80% of shoppers stay in the AI channel and ask again. 

A shopper asks ChatGPT for noise-canceling headphones for an open office, under $300. One result explains why it fits: isolates low-frequency hum, weighs less than comparable models, includes a transparency mode for conversations. Another lists a name, a rating, and a price. 

In a Rithum and Retail Dive survey of 1,046 U.S. and U.K. online shoppers, 49% named a clear explanation of why a product was chosen as the top trust-builder in an AI recommendation. Always-accurate information came in at 32%. And shoppers who get that explanation are nearly twice as likely to buy without checking anywhere else. 

Why shoppers value AI explanation over accuracy in product recommendations 

Shoppers expect AI to get the basics right. 67% named price as the top detail AI needs to be accurate on, followed by reviews and availability. But when asked what would most increase their trust, they reached past accuracy. 49% chose a clear explanation of why a product was selected. Always-accurate information came in at 32%. 

Any ecommerce team has seen this on a product detail page. Accurate price and clean specs keep a listing live. Rich attributes are what make it sell. The same applies to AI. An LLM builds its explanation from whatever product data it can find. If your listing includes driver size, noise cancellation type, and a note about comfort for all-day wear, the AI has something specific to say. If it doesn’t, the AI defaults to price. 

A jacket listed with fabric composition, weight, care instructions, and a note that it runs slim through the shoulders gives AI something to work with. A jacket listed as “men’s jacket, blue, available in S-XL” gives AI a price to compare. 

Newer brands with complete, attribute-rich product data already use this to their advantage, earning more persuasive recommendations than established names running on thin listings. When product data is wrong or incomplete, 80% of shoppers stay in the AI channel and ask again. The next answer is built on whatever data is available at that point. 

AI-powered shoppers buy faster and verify less 

47% of 28-to-43-year-olds say AI makes them faster decision-makers, compared to 21% of shoppers 60 and older. Shoppers who are “very familiar” with AI tools are 3x more likely to purchase without verification.   

For these shoppers, the explanation in the recommendation has to do the work that a product page, a review site, or a friend’s opinion used to handle. When the explanation falls short, the shopper moves to the next option in the response. There is no second visit, no follow-up search. The sale goes to whichever product explained itself best.   

How to optimize product content for AI recommendations 

Product content built for explanation earns stronger AI recommendations than content built only for visibility.   

• Enrich product attributes beyond the minimum required fields. Include use cases, compatibility notes, and sizing context. 

• Keep pricing and availability current across every channel where AI pulls data. 

• Monitor where shoppers verify AI recommendations and ensure your data holds up in those places too. Shoppers turn to search engines first at 28%, followed by online reviews at 19% and friends and family at 17%. 

• Test your own visibility: ask an LLM about your product category and evaluate whether your products appear with a clear, specific reason attached. 

• Prioritize data hygiene: validate and standardize titles, attributes, categories, and inventory/pricing sync so AI doesn’t amplify broken inputs across channels. 

Prioritize data hygiene: validate and standardize titles, attributes, categories, and inventory/pricing sync. AI can’t fix bad data. It can only move faster with whatever you give it, and when the inputs are off, that speed works against you. 

For a full breakdown of the data, download The New Discovery Engine report. 

The post Shoppers trust AI recommendations more when they explain why appeared first on Rithum.

Sellers across categories are adding Temu to their channel plans as they look for new ways to reach customers without rebuilding their operations from scratch. Temu ranked as the most downloaded shopping app worldwide in 2025 on the iOS App Store and Google Play, reaching more than 530 million global monthly active users by mid-year. 

Since Temu opened its marketplace to all U.S. sellers through the Local Seller Program in November 2024, sellers have moved quickly to test it alongside their existing channels. Zero registration fees, dedicated seller support, and a direct connection through Rithum give sellers a path to add the channel without overhauling how they work. 

Why add Temu: a new sales channel worth testing

Managing multiple channels gets expensive fast. Customer acquisition costs keep climbing, and adding a new marketplace typically brings new systems, new workflows, and more manual work. Temu’s Local Seller Program is built around a different model. 

Through the program, sellers of all sizes get access to Temu’s marketplace with zero registration fees, dedicated support, and built-in seller tools. Temu reports that 50% of new sellers make their first sale within 20 days of registration. Sellers can list products across more than 600 categories, including groceries, plants, books, and furniture. 

Sellers can work with their existing logistics partners or choose from Temu’s partner network for fulfillment and payment processing. Temu requires U.S. sellers to fulfill orders from domestic inventory, so local stock is recommended before activating listings.  

Temu’s discovery-based model surfaces products based on what shoppers are actively browsing and buying, with less reliance on paid placement to drive visibility. Both bestsellers and niche products get a chance to reach new audiences. According to an Ipsos survey commissioned by Temu, 1 in 4 shoppers said they are more willing to try new products on Temu, and 75% said they would recommend the platform to others. 

Rithum connection: adding Temu without adding manual work  

Rithum and Temu announced their integration in August 2025, giving Rithum sellers a direct path to add Temu without building a separate workflow for it. Sellers sync product catalogs in bulk, and inventory updates and fulfillment data move through the same workflows already in use across other channels. 

Rithum supports multi-location inventory and a range of fulfillment models, including owned warehouses, 3PLs, and marketplace fulfillment programs, so sellers can manage Temu alongside existing operations from one platform. Rithum connects sellers to more than 420 marketplace and retail integrations worldwide, including Amazon, Walmart, Target Plus, and TikTok Shop — Temu joins that network as another channel sellers can activate and manage from a central hub, without adding headcount or rebuilding operations. 

Pennsylvania-based Book & Mortar Record Store joined Temu in August 2025 through Rithum’s integration. Founder Eric Auth runs a small team selling hundreds of thousands of books, vinyl records, and other collectible media products online. Within months, the business listed several hundred thousand SKUs on Temu through the integration and moved more than 31,000 units without paid advertising yet. Auth credited Temu’s discovery-based shopping experience with helping the business reach new audiences and drive sales volume. 

For sellers already on Rithum, the Temu setup guide in the Knowledge Center walks through configuration, catalog sync, and listing activation. 

How one seller put it to work on Temu through Rithum 

Pennsylvania-based Book & Mortar Record Store sells books, vinyl records, and collectibles online, with hundreds of thousands of products in its catalog. Founder Eric Auth runs his business with a small team, so every new marketplace has to be manageable. Rithum already supported day-to-day operations across channels, and Temu came into that same workflow when the integration launched in August 2025. Within months, Book & Mortar listed several hundred thousand SKUs on the platform, moved more than 31,000 units without paid advertising, and reported daily GMV in the $5,000 to $10,000 range.  

Temu’s discovery-based model was a practical fit for a catalog that spans bestsellers and niche titles alike. The platform surfaces products based on shopper interest, giving individual titles a better chance of finding the right audience and turning catalog breadth into steady sell-through. 

“Rithum’s integration with Temu made selling on Temu possible for us. We can load a large catalog in bulk and cut down on errors and hours of manual work. Adding Temu as a new channel has enabled us to scale to several hundred thousand SKUs, and it’s now making up over 15% of our sales within just six months.”  

— Eric Auth, Business Owner, Book and Mortar Record Store 

Getting started on Temu 

For sellers looking to evaluate and scale on Temu, here are a few steps to get started: 

• Review Temu’s seller policies: Check marketplace rules before listing products, including prohibited categories and compliance requirements. Consistently meeting product quality standards helps build customer trust and earn positive reviews. 

• Meet shipping requirements: Follow expected delivery times and packaging standards to ensure smooth fulfillment and customer satisfaction. Temu requires U.S. sellers to fulfill from domestic inventory, so confirm your logistics setup before activating listings. 

• Provide excellent customer service: Respond promptly to customer inquiries and handle returns and refunds efficiently to support repeat business and maintain good standing. 

• Track performance metrics: Monitor order fulfillment rates, shipping performance, and customer satisfaction scores to identify areas where to improve. 

• Tap into Temu’s tools and support: Stay up to date with requirements and policies through Temu’s seller center resources and use tools such as the IP Protection Portal and Brand Registry to help manage intellectual property. 

• Connect through Rithum. If you’re already a Rithum seller, add Temu directly through the Rithum Connection. The Temu setup guide in the Knowledge Center covers configuration, catalog sync, and listing activation step by step. 

The post Why sellers are adding Temu to their channel mix appeared first on Rithum.

Walmart Marketplace makes shopping simple, fast, and dependable for shoppers. Rithum extends that ease to sellers. We help sellers grow their Walmart Marketplace business and optimize their operations by simplifying the process of listing products, setting prices, and managing fulfillment.  

Rithum has helped thousands of brands list their products and find success on Walmart Marketplace since 2012. 40% of our sellers are active on Walmart.com and, on average, see a higher average order volume with Walmart than on other channels:     

• 40% of Rithum clients are active on Walmart, making it our top-performing US marketplace for growth and GMV.  
• 13% higher average order volume (AOV) than network average (Network $52.52 vs Walmart AOV $59.82)  
• 3-5% higher Net Merchandise Value (NMV) with Walmart versus other key marketplaces across the Rithum network (old stat need to get updated report) 

*Source: Rithum data

Fast onboarding and setup on Walmart Marketplace 

Thanks to a strong relationship with Walmart Marketplace, Rithum sellers enjoy a premium white-glove onboarding experience. Once approved, many of our sellers can begin listing their items in as little as 24 hours, with most fully set up within five days. 

Make the most out of Walmart’s tools with Rithum 

Rithum sellers enjoy early access to Walmart Marketplace’s newest tools and programs—designed to help sellers grow with confidence. Rithum helps you get more out of the tools and programs available on Walmart Marketplace. Rithum can help you:

• Expand your product assortment 
• Increase conversion rates and drive more sales  
• Generate more positive customer reviews  
• Reach more shoppers  
• Fulfill orders faster while reducing shipping costs 

Here are Walmart Marketplace’s leading tools and how we help you get the most out of them to grow your business. 

Expand your catalog with the Assortment Growth dashboard 

Want to know what customers are already searching for on Walmart.com? The Assortment Growth dashboard shows top-selling items in a seller’s category and makes it easy to add them directly to their catalog.  

Here’s how it helps: 

• Shows what shoppers are searching for so sellers can add the right products. 
• Helps sellers make smarter choices by offering simple insights on trends and performance. 
• Enables sellers to add items quickly using an easy setup tool that saves time. 

Rithum also helps detect and fix listing errors when sellers upload new items and also optimize product listings for success.

Automate your pricing strategy with Repricer 

Keep your offers competitive with Repricer. This tool automatically adjusts prices based on seller-defined strategies, which helps sellers maximize sales while saving time on manual updates. Rithum’s integration with the Repricer API means sellers can quickly get started with Walmart’s pricing tools.

Fulfillment options for Walmart sellers through the partnership  

Running a successful marketplace business requires smooth operations, controlled costs, and fast-moving orders. Rithum helps sellers streamline fulfillment on Walmart Marketplace by making it easier to use Walmart’s built-in tools and programs. From one platform, sellers can manage orders, keep inventory in sync, and automate key fulfillment steps, so products get to customers faster and with fewer manual tasks. 

Here’s how sellers can streamline fulfillment on Walmart Marketplace:  

• Discounted shipping: Save on every order with Walmart’s Preferred Carrier Program.  
• Ship with Walmart: Now available in Rithum, giving sellers access to discounted shipping labels from trusted carriers like UPS, FedEx, and USPS, with savings up to 60% below market rates. Eligible shipments include automatic protection up to $100 and support on-time delivery and valid tracking, with rate comparison available through the Ship with Walmart rate calculator.  
• Walmart Fulfillment Services (WFS): Walmart handles storage, packing, and shipping so sellers can stay focused on growing sales. 
• Multichannel Fulfillment Solutions: Sellers can use their WFS inventory to fulfill orders from other sales channels. One inventory, multiple checkouts.  
• Automated tools: Keep inventory synced automatically—no manual updates needed. 

Get started selling on Walmart Marketplace through Rithum

Rithum can help you get set up and start selling on Walmart Marketplace simply and seamlessly. We’ll work with you and Walmart to help you reach more customers and grow your business.  

Reach out to our team to get started on Walmart Marketplace today. 

The post Start selling on Walmart Marketplace with Rithum appeared first on Rithum.

Most retail media teams already know what they can change. The more difficult decision to make is when, especially once a program spans multiple retailers and a large product catalog. Executing a plan slows down during the time between noticing a change and getting the right fix applied across the account. While it might be easy enough to spot a change, it is harder to update multiple SKUs across several campaigns without taking on a day’s worth of manual work. 

In campaign management, I push for a simple operating rule: treat retail media optimization like a routine you can run even when the week is busy. That routine does two things well: It helps you spot movement early, and it makes it easier to apply updates across many campaigns without turning the work into a click marathon. Here’s how to make this routine work. 

Start by looking at what changes week by week

Instead of looking at a snapshot summary of what happened, compare so you can see what changed. Start every review by comparing performance to a prior period that makes sense for your business. For example, for daily work, compare to yesterday. For weekly work, compare to last week. For monthly work, compare to last month. Also pull the same time period from last year when seasonality matters. Year-over-year context helps you separate a real performance shift from a predictable calendar pattern, especially around holidays, promotions, and category cycles. 

Once you look at change over time, you can sort what you see into the three buckets that matter: 

1. A product or retail condition changed. That might be availability, pricing, Buy Box status, or competition changes (their promotion strategies could have changed). 
2. Campaign settings or targeting changed. Pacing, targeting mix, bids, or placement performance shifted. 
3. The reporting view changed. Retailers do not all report the same way, and attribution can differ by ad type and placement. 

That sorting step keeps you from doing bid work to solve a product issue, and it keeps you from blaming the retailer when the campaign setup is the real problem. 

One practical note: not every retailer provides the same fields. Use what you have on each network and treat additional commerce context as a bonus signal when it is available. 

Daily retail media optimization review: keep budget pointed at what can convert

A daily review is meant to look at where you can prevent obvious waste and protect coverage. This is different from a review where you’re looking to optimize the whole account.  

It helps to look at delivery and pacing. If a campaign is not serving or a budget is pacing wrong, nothing else matters until that is corrected. 

Next, it’s important to look at concentration. Spend almost always clusters. If the top set of SKUs is shifting, the day’s performance shifts with it. 

After doing that, check whether the SKUs you’re paying to promote still have a fair shot to compete today. Look for changes that can undermine conversion even if your campaign settings did not move, such as pricing shifts, inventory pressure, slower fulfillment, weaker product page content, or a change in the competitive set, like a new promotion, a competitor price drop, or more aggressive bidding in the category. 

Were there sharp swings on the same set of top spenders? Look at whether there was a big move in CPC, conversion rate, or sales. This can help you confirm inputs, then decide whether to act. 

Daily actions should stay simple. Pause what cannot convert and redirect spend to the next-best set. Reduce exposure when you need to buy time. Save deeper structure work for the weekly pass. 

Weekly retail media optimization review: fix patterns and cut back on manual work

With daily reviews, you can catch exceptions. Weekly reviews allow you to improve how the account runs. If you see the same problem across a set of campaigns or SKUs, apply one change across the set of SKUs and move on. 

The weekly review also gives you a cleaner window for decisions that need more than a single day of signal: 

• Tighten targeting based on what repeated, not what spiked once. 
• Adjust bids and budgets where performance held steady long enough to trust it. 
• Decide which SKUs earn more investment and which ones need constraints. 

Weekly is also where testing belongs so you can learn and not create chaotic changes. Pick one change you can explain, write down what you changed and why, then review it the next week before you add another variable. 

Monthly retail media optimization review: reset budgets, structure, and measurement 

Monthly work should feel different from weekly work. Weekly work improves performance inside the current plan. Monthly work checks whether the plan still matches the business. 

This is where you make the decisions that reduce rework later: Rebalance budget by retailer, category, and the product sets the business actually wants to grow. Then clean up structure that slows execution or muddies reporting. Once you’ve done that, you can confirm the measurement view answers the question your stakeholders care about.  

Where Rithum fits in the day-to-day work 

A review routine only helps when it leads to fast, consistent changes. Most delays are a result of repeat work that gets handled one campaign at a time. 

That is the gap our digital marketing, retail media managed services, and tooling are designed to close. We use rules-based automation and filters to improve bidding, keyword, and dayparting strategies, and we automate key campaign components like bidding, dayparting, and ad status.  

On the operations side, we also take on the work that tends to clog a week: campaign creation, tracking, and reporting across multiple channels. 

The benefit is speed and consistency, especially when the same change needs to roll across a large catalog. 

If you want a quick way to assess whether your current approach will scale, look at one week of account work and count how often you made the same change in more than one place. When repetition is high, the best process in the world still slows down without a better execution path. 

A better way to value support 

If you are considering a platform, managed support, or both, do not start with feature checklists. Start with a workflow question: 

When performance shifts midweek, how quickly can your team apply the fix across the full catalog, across retailers, without creating a second job in spreadsheets? 

If you want to pressure-test your current process, our team can walk through the cadence above using a recent slice of your program and identify where repeat work is slowing you down. The retail media services overview is the right place to start if you want a team to help run execution day to day. 

Nick Szeto is Senior Manager, Advertising Account Management, at Rithum.

The post You already monitor retail media and digital marketing campaigns; build a routine that gets updates live faster appeared first on Rithum.

TL;DR 

• ROAS stays useful when you read it inside one retailer and within specific placements. Once you carry it across retailers, the comparison gets noisy unless you bring context with it. 

• Every retail media network behaves like its own environment. People shop differently, products appear differently, and performance attribution varies greatly. 

• Strong retail media strategy starts retailer by retailer, using insights on a retailer-by-retailer basis to meet the customer where they are in their shopping journey. 

• Price, availability, and assortment shape shopping outcomes in ways ROAS does not show. 

• Reporting is most valuable when it connects ad spend to product-level outcomes and uses the language that aligns with the business 

On the weekly call with the retailer’s ecommerce team, the deck opens with ROAS (return on ad spend) and a tidy spend line. Everything looks good, until someone asks about which products are they trying to move the next week. Answering that question requires looking beyond the fast sellers to address the products that haven’t been as successful to find out how to change that. 

It’s easy to keep spending on the products that already sell efficiently. Brands and retailers also have other priorities, like giving a new launch enough visibility to earn repeat purchases, supporting a focus line ahead of a seasonal moment, or putting weight behind an item that reliably introduces shoppers to the rest of the brand. That’s why ROAS belongs in the overall update, but it won’t tell you whether the budget supported the week’s priorities. 

Picture a snack brand whose variety pack always delivers strong ROAS. Left alone, the plan keeps feeding that winner. Then the retailer flags next week’s focus: a new flavor launch tied to a seasonal feature. The brand shifts some spend to the new item and a few related products shoppers often buy together. The report may still credit the variety pack, but the plan does the job the retailer asked for, and the brand can watch whether more of the lineup starts moving. 

What ROAS tells you, and what it can’t 

ROAS is a strong efficiency signal for retail media strategy. Within one retailer, with consistent placements and stable measurement, it gives teams something practical to steer by when they manage bids and pacing. 

But overall brand profitability is a separate question. There are many dependencies for that level of measurement, including products sold, margin on the items that absorbed spend, and whether the outcome matched what the business needed that month. Those details often live outside the ad platform view, even on teams with solid measurement habits. 

A high ROAS can also happen when spend simply follows the easiest conversions. Budget concentrates on the fastest conversions, product conditions change midstream, and the report still looks strong. Nothing is “wrong” with the metric. It just doesn’t explain whether the spend supported the products the business needed to move. 

Retail media strategy is unique to each retailer environment

Retail media networks don’t follow one set of rules. A single approach template can feel efficient, but it smooths over the very differences that drive performance. What tactics may work in Amazon may not resonate the same in a Walmart or Target Roundel.  

Rithum points out just how scattered retail media still is: more than 220 networks, and each retailer reports results in its own format. 

Assortment varies by retailer, and a brand’s winners in one store may not even be listed in another. Shoppers also bring different expectations depending on where they shop, which changes how they respond to ads and merchandising. Retailer programs add another layer, from exclusives to promotion structures that alter which products deserve investment. Reporting varies as well, sometimes in small ways and sometimes in ways that change what a familiar metric appears to mean. 

Start by assuming the retailers won’t behave the same way. Then you can plan around the few things that change every time. 

What changes from retailer to retailer: 

• Assortment 

• How shoppers behave 

• How results get measured and reported 

Even one of these differences can force you to change plans. When combined, a one-size-fits-all or copy-and-paste strategy is risky. 

A retailer-by-retailer retail media strategy that holds up 

1. Decide what this retailer needs to do for you 

Start with intent before you touch the media plan. You need to ask what is this retailer supposed to deliver? 

Some retailer environments are volume drivers, while others are where shoppers discover and compare brands in a category, and still others matter because the relationship shapes promotions and visibility beyond media. Those differences should guide which placements you prioritize, which products get budget, and what you consider a good week. 

If you skip this step, the conversation turns into a debate about numbers that weren’t built to match. Rithum helps clients to look beyond the biggest networks, where a brand can often reach new shoppers and earn more visibility for the same effort. 

2. Choose the products that deserve the budget 

The question worth answering every week is what products is the retailer trying to sell more of next week? 

For instance, imagine a brand that sells both pantry staples and premium seasonal items. Last week’s ROAS winner might be the staple that sells year-round with a predictable conversion rate. But this week, the smarter list could look different. The retailer has a seasonal event running, the premium item is in stock and priced competitively, and the brand needs to build visibility for it before the moment passes. Meanwhile, a different product might be selling fine without paid support, or it might be tight on inventory, which makes it a poor candidate for extra spend. 

The right product list won’t be the same everywhere. Each retailer has a different assortment, different shoppers, and different moments week to week. 

Advertise based on where your target consumers are in their shopping journey. People come to each retailer with a purpose. Some visits are quick purchases; others are browsing and comparison. Creative works better when it matches that mindset instead of forcing one generic message everywhere. 

Retailer programs and exclusives matter here too. A promotion, a bundle, or an exclusive item can change which products make sense to push that week. 

3. Keep ads synced with what shoppers can buy 

Prices can change overnight. Inventory can tighten without warning. Monday’s campaign leans on the hero product; by midweek, shoppers can’t buy it, and the ads keep sending traffic anyway. 

Rithum’s Product Feeds materials describe low-latency syncing for inventory and pricing, with near-real-time changes to price, stock, and new items, with the stated goal of reducing wasted ad spend and preventing out-of-stock recommendations. 

4. Don’t let fast sellers swallow the budget 

Retail media spend tends to gravitate toward a handful of products that already convert. The signal is clean, and dashboards keep reinforcing the same winners. 

That pattern can crowd out the products you’re trying to grow. A best seller keeps getting budget because it makes ROAS look great, while a new line never gets enough exposure to prove itself. 

Rithum’s retail media advertising materials describe product-aware optimization that leverages inventory, pricing, and margin data insights powered by RithumIQ. 

5. Translate unique retailer metrics into business terms 

Retailers deliver performance data in their own formats, and standard metrics aren’t consistent across networks. Comparisons can still be useful, but they require clear definitions before anyone draws conclusions. 

Rithum’s retail media advertising materials also describe closed-loop reporting that ties spend to sales at the ASIN level for profitability measurement. 

The scenario where ROAS is enough 

ROAS can carry more weight when a program stays inside one retailer, within a stable set of placements, and the assortment doesn’t change much week to week. In that setup, the comparison is cleaner. 

As soon as a program spreads across retailers, the differences return. Assortment, shopping behavior, merchandising, and reporting depth still vary enough to change what “good” looks like. 

Where tools help, and where they don’t 

Most teams already know retailers work differently. The hard part is execution: keeping product reality, campaign decisions, and reporting connected without rebuilding the workflow every week. 

Rithum’s public materials describe product-aware optimization that leverages inventory, pricing, and margin data insights powered by RithumIQ, along with closed-loop reporting that ties spend to sales at the ASIN level for profitability measurement. 

Tools don’t replace judgment. They can make a retailer-by-retailer approach easier to run consistently. 

ROAS belongs in the update, but profit terms live at the product level. Look at the items that received budget in each retailer, the margin behind those sales, and the total margin dollars the week produced. Keep price and in-stock status in view at the same time. That view makes it easier to judge whether the budget supported the week’s priorities, not just the items that earned the cleanest attribution. Learn more about retail media strategy and how Rithum can help. 

Meghan Barden is Director of Global Retail Media at Rithum.

The post Why a high ROAS doesn’t always mean high profit  appeared first on Rithum.

TL;DR

• “Returnuary” is a myth: January is the second-lowest return month of the year, with a 7.5% average return rate across 8.2M products and 20,000+ suppliers on the Rithum platform
• The real returns crisis is summer: June peaks at 9.35%, July at 8.78%
• TikTok Shop’s U.S. return rate is 0.42%, compared to an 8.25% ecommerce average, meaning traditional channel shoppers are 18x more likely to return a product
• Even in fashion, women’s jeans are 2.4x less likely to be returned via TikTok Shop than through non-social channels.Zalando reduced size-related returns by 10% after implementing more precise sizing tools

Every January, retail teams brace for the post-holiday return wave. It’s become almost a mythical event, with its own nickname: “Returnuary.”

But does it actually exist?

We analyzed return behavior across our more than 8.2 million unique products and 20,000+ suppliers generating billions in global sales. And across three years of data, January consistently ranks as the second-lowest return month of the year, with an average return rate of just 7.5%.

In today’s ecommerce driven gift season, it seems it’s more likely for items to be regifted or recycled to thrift stores than returned.

The actual return crisis is waiting in the sunny summer shadows: June has the year’s highest return rates, with peaks at 9.35%. July follows at 8.78%.

These are driven almost entirely by seasonal apparel. Shoppers buy swimsuits, dresses, and summer pieces sight-unseen, often in multiples, often with the full intention of returning most of them. Two-piece swimwear alone sees return rates as high as 64%.

This pattern has held consistently from 2022 through 2025. While there are nuances to it—retailers who don’t sell clothes likely aren’t hit as hard, for example—the big takeaway is that if your returns strategy is built around January, you’re focusing on the wrong month. The Returnuary monster is a tall tale, distracting from the spikey June lurking around the corner.

Social commerce is cracking returns wide open

In recent returns analysis, we also looked closely at how social commerce is changing the returns landscape.

TikTok Shop’s U.S. return rate is 0.42%.The overall ecommerce average sits at 8.25%. That means shoppers on traditional channels are 18x more likely to return a product than TikTok Shop buyers. The UK TikTok Shop return rate is 0.75%—still a fraction of conventional channel performance.

The instinct is to chalk this up to product type, with the assumption being that TikTok sells cheap, low-consideration items that aren’t worth the hassle of returning.

That’s the easy answer. But we don’t see that holding true. Even in fashion—the highest-return category in all of ecommerce, where 68% of consumers have made a return and traditional return rates run 50-70%—TikTok Shop buyers behave fundamentally differently. Women’s jeans, one of the most-returned items in fashion, are 2.4x less likely to be returned through TikTok Shop than through non-social commerce channels.

The mechanism is straightforward: TikTok gives consumers more confidence before checkout. In traditional ecommerce, a consumer is gambling on product photos and written descriptions. On TikTok Shop, they can see exactly how a product fits on a real body: the stretch, the sizing, the way it looks in motion. There are no surprises at unboxing. Which likely leads to far less bracketing, far fewer returns.

This has meaningful implications beyond TikTok specifically. It’s a green flag about what actually reduces returns: better pre-purchase information. Our last year’s consumer survey of 6,000+ global shoppers backs this up: 39% said better size and fit recommendations would significantly reduce their returns, and 31% say they’d be less likely to return a product if it included real-life customer photos.

Bracketing is a young person’s game. And it’s here to stay.

The summer apparel spike is largely a bracketing problem, and bracketing is a generational one. More than 50% of shoppers under 35 admit to regularly buying more items than they intend to keep, specifically planning to return the rest. Globally, 36% of all consumers do it, with Germany at 43% and the U.S. at 39% leading among surveyed markets.

The behavior is especially entrenched in European markets, where platform refund rates in countries like Austria and Poland can exceed 60% on fashion items. And it accelerates when conditions are favorable: free shipping, generous return windows, and frictionless return processes all make bracketing easier.

The irony is that the policies designed to drive conversion are often the ones amplifying the return problem. One European retail brand implemented a 100-day return window with free logistics. Fashion refund rates soared above 60%. The policy had turned the brand into a fitting room at scale, with all the handling, restocking, and margin erosion that entails.

Friction as a feature

Return friction has traditionally been treated as something to minimize at all costs. The new thinking—and the data—suggests a more nuanced approach.

1 in 5 shoppers says they’ve wanted to return something but didn’t, citing hassle, shipping costs, or distance to drop-off. This intentional friction, placed thoughtfully, can reduce casual returns without damaging the experience for buyers who genuinely need to return.

Return windows are similarly flexible. 51% of global consumers consider a 14-day or shorter window reasonable—and acceptance is even higher in heavy-return markets like Germany (57%) and France (64%). The assumption that consumers expect 30-day windows as a baseline isn’t supported by what consumers actually say they would accept.

Sustainability framing is emerging as another lever, particularly for younger segments. 60% of shoppers say they’d be open to consolidating return shipments to reduce environmental impact. More than half say they’d accept return limits or small fees if positioned as planet-positive. Among Gen Z, 85% say their return behavior is influenced by environmental concerns—the highest of any age group, and a clear signal about where consumer expectations are heading.

Your return policy is a fitting room

The thread running through all of this—the social commerce returns, the summer spike, the bracketing behavior—is that most returns are a pre-purchase problem masquerading as a post-purchase one. And that returns are more complex than they used to be.

But overall, shoppers who know exactly what they’re buying return far less.

The operational and policy fixes are just symptoms. The information gap is the disease.

Close the information gap first. High-quality images, real customer photos, detailed sizing guides, and fit tools are among the highest-ROI investments a retailer can make in return reduction. Zalando reduced size-related returns by 10% after implementing more precise sizing tools. The upfront investment pays for itself quickly.

Build better return policies. Tie free returns to loyalty tiers or order thresholds. Use SKU-level profitability data to determine where you can absorb free return costs and where you need to draw a line. Test variable fees on low-margin products or with repeat returners.

Watch your calendar, not just your categories. If apparel is in your assortment, your peak return exposure is June and July, not January. Other categories might offer similar clues. There is no more singular commerce calendar. Plan inventory, staffing, and return logistics accordingly.

Take social commerce seriously as a returns strategy. Video-driven, creator-mediated product discovery fundamentally changes buyer confidence. That principle is portable across marketplaces: video content, real customer demonstrations, and fit-focused creative reduce returns across channels.

Want to learn more about the nuances of returns and how to prepare? Talk to us. We can help give you specific guidance and guidelines for making returns a profit lever, instead of a loss.

Data caveat: Rithum powers sales on social commerce across fashion, beauty, electronics, and other categories. Data sourced from the Rithum commerce platform, representing 8.2M unique products and 20K+ suppliers generating billions in global sales across ecommerce channels. Results reflect the composition of brands and retailers using the platform.

Gregor Kiddie is a manager, engineering, at Rithum.

The post How to prepare for the return crisis you’re not watching for appeared first on Rithum.

During Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2025, TikTok reported more than $500 million in U.S. sales across four days during Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2025, alongside 760,000 livestream sessions and 1.6 billion views. At Rithum, we saw social commerce orders surging 152% during Black Friday week.  

That’s retail-scale volume moving through a social feed. But many brands and retailers I work with at Rithum still treat social as an awareness engine first, with sales as a nice bonus.  

That made sense when social sent shoppers off-platform. But now, with TikTok Shop and similar platforms keeping the purchases in-app, the social selling ecommerce playbook has changed. As a technical account management manager at Rithum, I have social selling conversations with customers all the time that start the same way: demand looks real, content looks strong, and the plan looks solid. Yet going live is still messier than it should be. This gap often comes from old assumptions of what social selling requires in today’s world of fast-moving demand.  

Social now demands marketplace-level operational rigor. Except on social, you have just days to get it right before the algorithm moves on. Here’s how to get social selling right from the start.  

Rethink marketplace basics for social speed  

TikTok Shop and other social selling ecommerce rewards the same fundamentals that matter on any marketplace: complete product data, very specific categorization, and inventory management that can handle demand fluctuations. 

Strong TikTok Shop catalogs follow clear rules that teams can apply across thousands of SKUs. 

• Product options that stay consistent. Size, color, bundles, and editions need rules that don’t change from SKU to SKU. Inconsistent options lead to wrong selections, support tickets, and returns. 
• Product attributes that help shoppers decide. When teams skip or rush attribute fields, products become harder to classify, harder to surface, and harder to trust. In a feed, listings get a split second to make sense. 
• Category assignments that match TikTok Shop’s category structure. TikTok Shop relies on specific categorization. Misalignment limits where products appear and creates friction during setup. 

At a few hundred SKUs, small inconsistencies can easily be missed. At a few thousand, these inconsistencies turn into misclassified products, messy product options, and avoidable returns. 

Tighten inventory discipline to protect momentum when demand jumps

When Book & Mortar Record Store went live with TikTok Shop, they had an almost immediate viral moment (courtesy of Taylor Swift). Within a few days, Book & Mortar sold 1,600 copies of the “Reputation” vinyl record. Their manual processes couldn’t keep up and as a result, they oversold (read the case study for how they course-corrected here). 

The lesson: on social, inventory accuracy matters most when demand jumps. And demand moves faster on social. When inventory accuracy slips, sales growth momentum turns into customer service work. 

Build for speed from day one 

On TikTok Shop, and all social, time is the biggest constraint. New listings take too long to go live, updates lag, and assortment expansion stalls right as demand grows. 

Going back to Book & Mortar, they saw first-hand what publishing speed enables. After adopting Rithum’s TikTok Shop marketplace integration, they went live by noon the next day and scaled from 30 products per day to up to 1,000. Their Rithum TikTok Shop integration handled quantity management across channels and mapped orders through suppliers. 

That speed is the backbone of TikTok Shop success: adding SKUs, building product options, responding to trends with assortment, and keeping listings current as demand changes. Planning for scale early keeps catalog updates from turning into a manual grind. 

Expect comparison shopping, even with in-app checkout 

TikTok Shop keeps checkout inside the app, but shoppers can still take detours. They see a product on TikTok, then search for it on Google or check a marketplace they already trust, especially if they’re comparing price, shipping speed, or return terms. 

Sellers can work with that behavior instead of fighting it. Keep the same products available across your other channels, and keep the basics consistent—title, images, key attributes, price logic, and inventory. When a shopper leaves TikTok to compare, they should be able to find the exact product again and buy with confidence. 

A simple way to assess social and TikTok Shop readiness 

Before a brand scales creators and content, it helps to pressure-test the basics that keep a TikTok Shop program running smoothly. A few questions surface gaps fast: 

• Can the team publish and update products in bulk, with consistent attributes and product options? 
• Can inventory stay accurate across channels when demand spikes? 
• Can fulfillment match what listings promise, including delivery timing? 
• Can returns handle normal customer behavior, like line-item and partial returns? 
• Can the program keep pace as TikTok Shop releases new requirements and features? 

Treat these as the foundation. Once they’re in place, content and creator strategy can do their job without creating operational whiplash.  

How Rithum can help 

Social channels are now your most fast-paced marketplace channel. The sellers who do well run their TikTok Shop catalog and operations the same way they run their presence on other major marketplaces. But it takes some building. 

Rithum helps sellers reduce that operational lift. Our TikTok Shop integration enables sellers to go live without building that connection from scratch, then managing the fundamentals that keep the channel healthy: publishing at scale, maintaining product attributes and categorization, keeping inventory accurate across channels, and routing orders without turning spikes into manual cleanup.  

About Rithum and TikTok Shop 

As a TikTok Shop partner, Rithum connects product catalogs, streamlines operations, and supports the core commerce workflows that enable discovery, conversion, and growth inside TikTok Shop. 

Learn more about how Rithum supports TikTok Shop sellers

The post Your TikTok Shop is a marketplace now. Is your product feed ready? appeared first on Rithum.