From Prime Day to Black Friday and end-of-year clearance, eCommerce sales events are a major part of the 2nd half calendar for brands, retailers and agencies. Successful campaigns require more than just markdowns. As performance expectations rise, brands and retailers must think smarter, move faster and invest in strategies that go beyond short-term spikes.

This Future of eCommerce Catch Up featured two insightful panels. The first unpacked what makes a successful sales event strategy in 2025. The debate reflected on summer sales events that had just passed – what worked, what didn’t, and how brands leveraged mid-year learnings to sharpen their year-end campaigns. From smart inventory planning and media timing to bundling, creator-led launches and loyalty activation, this panel discussion brought together voices from brands, marketplaces, agencies and technology platforms to share tactics, insights, and learnings that arm players in the game to perform better on the field.

The second panel of this Future of eCommerce Catch Up explored the evolution of retail media since our last event on the topic in 2024. Retail media has shifted from emerging trend to established channel in recent years. With retailers launching or refining their own networks, brands investing bigger budgets, and tech players raising the bar on targeting and measurement, Retail Media 2.0 is less about potential and more about performance.

This conversation revisited the state of play, analysing what has worked for brands investing more in retail media and we debated where the next big opportunities lie for retail media networks. From closed-loop measurement and data collaboration to on-site formats and off-platform expansion, we heard from those building the networks, buying the media, and supplying the technology within the rise and rise of retail media.