At a time when tariffs are tanking consumers’ willingness to spend, retailers can use all the help they can get to figure out what their customers will need or want in the future. Understanding retail data might be one way to navigate this economic uncertainty.

For retailers, customer data can become a catalyst to create personalized shopping experiences, adjust inventory and, in some cases, show what customers want before they do.

Here are some essential questions for retailers to connect the dots between data, personalization, and customer experiences in modern retail.

Retail Brew has compiled emailed responses from research firm Gartner and e-commerce tech provider commercetools. Three Gartner analysts—Kassi Socha, director analyst; Matt Moorut, senior director analyst; and Brad Jashinsky, director analyst—responded to Retail Brew’s questions. In addition, Dirk Hoerig, founder and chief innovation officer of commercetools, also weighed in.

Keep reading here.—VC

Shoppers in the US went on a spending spree last month. Retail sales ticked up 1.4% in March, and if you zoom out, retail sales rose at an even faster clip of 4.2% compared to last year.

However, all that spending doesn’t necessarily spell good news for the economy with trade experts calling this a panic buying binge ahead of President Donald Trump’s tariff-driven price increases.

Headlines with the term “panic buying” have been splashed across media outlets, from the New York Times and CBS to Bloomberg and BBC. Here’s a quick primer on what panic buying is, when it occurs, and what to make of all this anxiety-induced shopping.

Keep reading here.—VC

While the last presidential election may have found the cannabis business leaning toward Kamala Harris because of her years of advocacy for cannabis reform, the Trump presidency may benefit the industry in another way: His being in office makes people want to get more high.

Among US cannabis users, 50% said they would be consuming more of it during the new presidential administration, according to a Harris poll commissioned by Royal Queen Seeds, a Barcelona-based company that markets cannabis seeds to home growers.

Most likely to increase their intake: women aged 21–34, with nearly 6 in 10 (59%) saying they’ll consume more.

Keep reading here.—AAN