Amazon, Alibaba Drive Retail’s Brand Growth

In the aggregate, retail brands worldwide rose 35% in brand value, more than double its 14% rise a year ago, according to the BrandZ Retail report from Kantar and WPP. The top five retailers globally — Amazon, Alibaba, The Home Depot, Walmart and JD.com — drove much of the category’s gain, with Amazon up 49%, Alibaba up 92% and JD up 94%, according to the report. Retailers with strong online and offline operations dominated, and e-commerce leaders “did even better,” according to the report. Rounding out the top 20 on the BrandZ list of top retailers are, in order: Costco, Ikea, Ebay, Aldi, Lowe’s, 7-eleven, Tesco, Walgreens, CVS, Lidl, Target, Whole Foods, Woolworths, Carrefour and Falabella. Read more at Retail Dive.