Few areas of digital marketing have exploded in recent years as much as affiliate marketing. What's more, it's actually proving effective: eMarketer in September said that affiliate marketing would drive more than $210 billion in US e-commerce sales that year. By 2028, that figure is expected to hit over $287 billion.
But with that growth comes a myriad of questions about implementation and how brands can actually get results.
This week on the Modern Retail Podcast, co-hosts Gabriela Barkho and Melissa Daniels answer listener questions around affiliate best practices and how it's changing amid changes in shopper behavior and media consumption.
The conversation gets into:

Amazon Prime Day isn't as essential as it once was. But for some brands, it can still provide a meaningful sales boost.
On this week's episode of the Modern Retail Podcast, special projects editor Melissa Daniels spoke with Katherine McKee, the fractional head of growth at Morphology Consulting, to break down the pros and cons of participating in the four-day sales event that is scheduled for June 23 through June 26.
The two discuss:

On this week's Modern Retail Podcast, senior reporter Gabriela Barkho is joined by executive editor Anna Hensel to talk all things World Cup marketing. This week, Modern Retail ran an editorial series on how retailers and brands of all sizes are taking advantage of the biggest-ever FIFA World Cup this summer. Malls are turning into hubs for fans, while retail media networks are looking at this as a critical moment to win over more advertiser dollars. As Hensel explains, this highly anticipated World Cup comes at a precarious moment for the industry, as retailers continue to worry that rising gas prices will lead consumers to cut back spending. The World Cup, then, will be a critical test for how resilient consumers actually are.

Later on in the episode, Alyssa Grigg, senior director of marketing and communications for Evergreen Goodwill of Northwest Washington, joins the show to discuss how its Seattle store plans to capitalize on matches happening on its home turf. Seattle is hosting six World Cup matches, and the stadium happens to be minutes from the largest Goodwill in the world. So the thrifting nonprofit is hosting several activations and events throughout the tournament to drive tourist and fan traffic.

In this interview, Grigg speaks to: 

Pride Month is underway, marking a season of celebration that's become a mainstay for some brands. But earning the trust of LGBTQ+ audiences goes far beyond rainbow merch or a few social media posts.

This week on the Modern Retail Podcast, special projects editor Melissa Daniels interviewed LGBTQ+ marketing specialists Matt Tumminello and Matt Wagner of Target10. Their conversation centers on earning trust with LGBTQ customers long before it's time for a Pride collection, starting with the ways companies used to show up and how that's changed over the years.

The conversation gets into:

Young consumers have always been a sought-after demographic for retailers — but what they value is always changing.

Over the past several decades, Pacsun has sought to maintain a strong pulse on the evolving tastes of teenagers. 

From viral jeans to strategic partnerships with creators, the mall-based retailer is once again winning over young people. For the first time in 18 years, the company is opening more new stores than it is closing.

Pacsun's digital strategy is heavily weighted toward customers’ personal interests and influences. The brand says it remains relevant through four key pillars: fashion, music, sport and art. And so in 2025, the company began releasing an annual Youth Report and announced its Youth Advisory Council. The two programs are an example of Pacsun leaning into customer participation and what it calls “consumers as co-creators.” 

On this week’s Modern Retail Podcast, senior reporter Gabriela Barkho is joined by Pacsun CEO Brie Olson, who recently released a new book called “Co-Created: The Cultural Strategy That Redefined Pacsun.” 

In this interview, Olson discusses:

Late May saw a slew of first-quarter earnings reports that reflected meaningful growth for companies like Target and Walmart, but also revealed some bigger shifts in consumer behavior and operational costs.

While shoppers dealing with higher fuel costs are pulling back in some areas, like DIY home projects, they're also showing up to treat themselves for limited-edition collabs or deals at off-price retailers.

This week on the Modern Retail Podcast, special projects editor Melissa Daniels is joined by reporter Mitchell Parton to unpack some of the biggest hits and misses of earnings season, from Target's comeback to the threat of rising fuel prices.

In the era of the viral vertical video, there is a seemingly endless appetite for new content. And brands are getting in on original content trying by creating their own series for social media.

In January, Gap Inc announced it was creating a new role, a chief entertainment officer, where Pam Kaufman will lead their “fashion-tainment” strategy. This year, David’s Bridal launched “Breaking Bridal,” a series documenting nontraditional weddings.

And since September, New York-based Prince Street Pizza has been putting out episodes of “Delivering Happiness,” a YouTube series starring actor Nick Turturro. Lawrence Longo, the CEO of Prince Street Pizza and Irv’s Burgers, is the brainchild behind “Delivering Happiness,” having gotten his start as a film producer before getting into the restaurant industry. Prince Street Pizza is in the middle of expanding nationwide – new locations are opening soon in Nashville and Charleston – and the show is part of the company’s brand awareness strategy.

This week, Longo joins senior reporter Gabriela Barkho and special projects editor Melissa Daniels on the Modern Retail Podcast. Longo breaks down his approach to storytelling and why he’s bullish on original content fueling Prince Street’s growth. "I think every brand is their own media company," Longo said.

This episode gets into:

For this week's Modern Retail Podcast, co-hosts Gabriela Barkho and Melissa Daniels were joined by Katie Thomas from the Kearney Consumer Institute to discuss how shoppers' financial stress is showing up in their shopping habits.

KCI recently released its latest Consumer Stress Index, which monitors 24,000 consumers across 12 countries. It looks not only at consumers' financial picture but also at their stress related to geopolitics and government, innovation and technology, food and the environment, and health and education.

What's different this year is that it's not just one factor causing consumers to feel stressed. It's the compounding effect of inflation, geopolitical instability and overall uncertainties.

"Put these two analyses together — historic stress levels and a population that feels starved of joy — and you get a consumer landscape that continues to defy the standard recessionary playbook," the report said.

On this week's episode of the Modern Retail Podcast, co-hosts Gabriela Barkho and Melissa Daniels are joined by Modern Retail's platforms reporter Allison Smith to dig into why TikTok Shop is becoming a more legitimate sales channel in the eyes of bigger brands.

Less than three years old, TikTok Shop now makes up roughly 20% of all social commerce sales, according to data from eMarketer. The rest of the category is dominated by Meta. Last year, the company drove $500 million in sales during the four-day stretch from Black Friday to Cyber Monday.
In response, more established legacy brands and mid-sized companies are popping up on TikTok Shop. Smith reported this March that sales from big-name brands — those with at least $30 million in annual revenue — increased 97% year-over-year on TikTok Shop.
The conversation discusses:

It seems like every company wants to bill itself as a “lifestyle brand” these days. If a company can truly integrate itself into a customer’s lifestyle – versus just selling them a single product – they can build a more powerful connection over time. But, what does that actually mean in practice?
In this episode of the Modern Retail Podcast – recording live at the Modern Retail Marketing Summit in Huntington Beach, California – Mandy Fry, co-owner and president of Southern California-based apparel brand Z Supply, talks about how she built Z Supply into a full-fledged lifestyle brand.
For Fry, building Z Supply into a lifestyle brand meant first and foremost taking the company into different categories. Fry joined Z Supply in 2019, roughly six years after the brand launched. At the time, Z Supply only carried t-shirts.
 Fry decided to first launch loungewear. At the time, “it was a really trendy category,” Fry said. And given that many customers said they liked the soft feel of Z Supply’s t-shirts, loungewear was the next logical step.
The loungewear launch came at a very fortuitous time: February 2020. The success of loungewear gave Z Supply to enter new categories like jackets, resortwear and even sunglasses.
But building Z Supply into a lifestyle brand required a mindset shift. As Fry put it, building a lifestyle brand is all about meeting your core customer “at every moment of the day.”
“I wanted to wake up with her in our loungewear. I wanted to go to school drop-off with her. I wanted to workout with her, I wanted to go to work with her, I wanted to go to drinks, I wanted to travel [with her].
The episode also gets into: