Driving Ecommerce Strategy Success: Russ Dieringer of Stratably Reveals How Brands Can Stay Competitive in a Fragmented Retail Landscape

The retail word of the year for 2025 isn’t “omnichannel,” “inflation,” or even “tariffs.” 

It’s uncertainty. 

Uncertainty about current and evolving economic conditions, and how these conditions impact revenue, retention, and customer satisfaction. Russ Dieringer, founder and CEO of Stratably, puts it simply: “We can’t get past uncertainty.” 

Instead, brands need to create a new ecommerce strategy that will help them navigate new economic outlooks. In his 2025 Digital Shelf Summit session during the Digital Shelf Institute (DSI) day, “Unlocking Retail Success in 2025 and Beyond: Why Digital Is Still Your Best Bet,” Dieringer offered actionable insight to help brands stay competitive in an increasingly fragmented retail landscape. 

The Macro Outlook: Ups and (Many) Downs

According to the National Retail Federation (NRF), retail sales are predicted to grow between 2.7% and 3.7% compared to 2024. The caveat? Current economic conditions remain volatile, making pinpointing exact numbers difficult.

“Overall, the economy has shown continued momentum so far in 2025, however, significant policy uncertainty is weighing on consumer and business confidence,” says Matthew Shay, NRF president and CEO.

Along with NRF predictions, Dieringer points to another positive and a few neutral economic markers.

“We have one metric that’s better,” Dieringer says. “Personal savings have inched up a bit, which is a positive sign of consumer health.” Neutral markers include average hourly earnings and the 30-year mortgage rate, holding steady.

Unfortunately, negative indicators outpace both their positive and neutral counterparts.

“A mixed picture last year has turned into a very negative picture,” says Dieringer. “Real income is down, unemployment is up. Tariffs and other macroeconomic signals have driven customer sentiment down fairly dramatically. Customer sentiment is almost down to the same level as it was at peak inflation in 2022.”

Working Smarter

While consumer and market conditions aren’t ideal, opportunities remain. “We just tell our clients, you’re going to have to work a little bit harder to unlock the growth that is available to you,” Dieringer says.

But what does this growth look like in practice? Dieringer highlights three retail outliers: Costco, Walmart, and Amazon.

Costco is “very aligned with the value-focused consumer,” Dieringer says. “Interestingly, Costco is the exception to the rule in that they’ve been largely reticent to embrace digital — instead, digital has come to them. For example, there’s an entire TikTok genre about ‘Going to a Costco on a Saturday’.”

Walmart, meanwhile, is “full pedal to the metal in terms of digital,” Dieringer says. “They’ve done a phenomenal job of winning upper-income consumers, especially those from Target. If you talk to Walmart retailers, they want to know how you’re going to help their digital penetration.” 

In 2024, 68% of Walmart’s growth came from digital channels. The same holds for other big brands, including Target, Home Depot, and Kroger, according to Stratably data. 

Not surprisingly, Amazon remains the top market performer in 2025. While Walmart has ramped up the competition, Amazon Ads revenue is still 12.7 times bigger than Walmart Connect. As a result, 73% of brands say Amazon is a critical revenue growth driver in 2025, and the same number say their Amazon margins are meeting or exceeding internal thresholds and goals, per Stratably. 

While the ecommerce strategy differs across these brands, the source of success remains the same: winning on the digital shelf:

• For Costco: A shared online experience created the opportunity for growth.
• For Walmart: It’s about building brand shops, creating and enhancing product detail pages (PDPs), and taking an omnichannel approach to sales.
• For Amazon: It’s about leaning into what they’ve always done best — reaching customers worldwide.

How Brands Can ‘Do’ Retail Media

Leading brands do retail media differently in three crucial ways:

1. Put Someone in Charge 

As noted by Dieringer, the biggest difference between “leaders” and “laggards” is having someone in charge. “Retail media leaders put someone in charge,” he says. “Laggards put no one in charge. Instead, they’re more likely to have individual accounts teams operating independently. There’s no mechanism for these teams to coordinate and understand.

According to Stratably data, 40% of leaders chose the head of ecommerce to lead retail media strategies, while 31% selected the chief marketing officer (CMO) or head of marketing. Among laggards, meanwhile, 23% opted for individual teams and 11% left the position entirely vacant. 

2. Get Everyone on the Same Page

Top-performing brands ensure everyone’s on the same page to ensure digital campaigns hit the mark. Compared to laggards, leaders improve cross-functional collaboration, involve both sales and marketing, and create a retail media center of excellence.

Consider the combination of sales and marketing teams. When they work in tandem, brands reach 36% more networks and receive 29% more funding from departments, according to Stratably. 

3. Budget for Incremental Actions

New digital options pave the way for better connection and improved customer engagement. But these options are unproven. Leaders spend more on test and learn budgets than laggards to learn what’s working, what isn’t, and where they can improve.

There’s also a distinction in ad spend focus. Where laggards look at high-level returns, leaders prioritize incremental metrics to help discover new opportunities.

Next Steps: Putting It All Together

Fragmented retail landscapes are diverging important economic factors, such as income, employment, and pricing, which are challenging but also open the door for more omnichannel opportunities. 

As consumer purchasing priorities change, it’s more important than ever to meet them where they are, not where brands hope they’ll be.

Walmart offers a great example. By focusing on enhanced product detail page (PDP) content, the brand has cannibalized some of the higher-income market share previously owned by Target. Combined with brand-specific shops and improved advertising, Walmart isn’t telling customers what they want to hear — instead, it’s listening on every available channel.

Three steps can help kickstart similar success for brands.

1. Track Macro Market Trends

Consumer trends are in flux, with spending predictions changing almost weekly. Managing this environment requires macro-level observation to pinpoint consumer priorities. For example, 54% of shoppers have abandoned sales because product content was inconsistent across channels, making high-quality, omnichannel PDPs a necessity, according to Salsify’s “2025 Consumer Research” report.

2. Follow the Leader(s)

There’s no need to reinvent the marketing wheel. While most brands don’t have the same budget as Costco, Walmart, or Amazon, they can learn from these 2025 front-runners that digital drives success. 

Whether it’s organic presence on sites like TikTok, going all-in on digital efforts, or leveraging the existing infrastructure of platforms like Amazon, it makes sense to follow the leaders if they can help get you where you’re going.

3. Spend Where It Makes Sense

Leaders spend on bigger teams, bank on better communication, and budget for incremental measurements. Spending where it makes sense helps brands get a complete picture of consumer priorities and make every product experience matter

Economic Uncertainty Requires Brands To Plan an Ecommerce Strategy 

Uncertainty is the watchword for 2025. Consumer uncertainty, however, can create opportunity — if brands know where to look. 

Plan your ecommerce strategy accordingly to account for excellent content, innovation readiness, advanced retail media capabilities, and a strong leader who will navigate the uncertain waters.