SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Apr 30, 2025--
Retailers are using visual media intelligently to create the frictionless, personalized online and in-store experiences that consumers love, according to global research out today from Cloudinary. A full 93% of retailers estimated that personalization alone delivers anywhere from 50-400% improvement in business outcomes. Crucially, the survey also revealed that technology adoption has matured to the point where retailers feel able to prioritize multiple consumer trends and preferences, like accessibility, sustainability and immersive experiences like virtual try-on and 3D. Explore the results here.
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Personalization driving 4X improvements
An overwhelming 88% of retailers said that personalization was critical to their digital strategies. A major reason for this is that consumers today shop on a wide range of devices that vary by country, in different languages and currencies, and over vastly different bandwidth levels.
Cloudinary’s research also revealed that the majority of retailers have employed automation to handle personalization: 67% dynamically adjust content for factors like language, currency, browser and device; 65% for geographic location; and 50% optimize content quality for bandwidth.
As retailers personalize experiences to reach more audiences, accessibility is also a top priority. Key accessibility measures retailers are taking include optimizing content for screen readers (62%), adding alt text for images and videos (57%), and providing closed captions (56%). An impressive two-thirds of retailers feel prepared for the European Accessibility Act (EAA).
Leveling up performance and accessibility for diverse audiences allows retailers to deliver seamless experiences to more consumers. This explains why nearly all retailers (93%) estimated significant improvements of up to 4X from personalization.
Next-gen digital experiences have arrived
As retailers are less focused on playing catch-up to manage the essential ‘housekeeping’ of personalization, they are freed up to prioritize work on building the immersive, visually-rich experiences that delight and engage their customers. Cloudinary’s survey reveals that in 2025 retailers are prioritizing video (62%), virtual try-on (53%), AR/VR (46%) and 3D (36%). The visual information these experiences provide help customers make faster, better-informed decisions and also substantially reduce the financial and environmental cost of returns.
Sustainability matters
Despite consumers’ valuing friction-free experiences and fast delivery, they also demand sustainability. That, along with cost-savings, makes sustainability a high priority for most retailers with 62% tracking energy consumption and adopting eco-friendly digital practices. These include optimizing media delivery for lower energy consumption (50%), recycling or repurposing digital content (47%), reducing redundant asset storage (46%) and tracking and reporting carbon footprint from digital tools (41%).
Digitizing the In-Store Experience
One of the most exciting revelations is that retailers are now applying ecommerce best practices to digitize the in-store experience and reduce in-store friction. The Cloudinary survey found that 66% of retailers use QR codes for product details and promotions; 64% leverage mobile apps for in-store navigation and assistance; and 32% are deploying AR to create in-store experiences online.
According to Cloudinary SVP of Marketing, Wanda Cadigan, “For the last several years retail has been battling several external factors, from the effects of Covid to supply chain challenges. Today’s global survey paints a refreshingly optimistic picture, showing retailers of all sizes coming through this adversity, not only rising to the technical challenges of delivering highly personalized and digitized experiences online and in-store, but also raising the bar by prioritizing video and next-gen experiences like virtual try-on and 3D.”
To learn more about and prepare for the European Accessibility Act (EAA), download Cloudinary’s free guide here.
Methodology
The Cloudinary Global Retail Survey 2025 was conducted by an independent research firm, Researchscape International, with 448 retail workers in specific departments in 14 different countries surveyed online between February 20 and March 17. To qualify for the survey, respondents' organizations had to have more than 1000 images and more than 100 videos on their website and/ or mobile app.
About Cloudinary
Cloudinary is the image and video platform that enables the world’s most engaging brands to deliver transformative visual experiences at global scale. More than two million users and 10,000 customers, including Adidas, Bleacher Report, Etsy, Fiverr, Grubhub, Minted and Paul Smith rely on Cloudinary to bring their campaigns, apps and sites to life. Backed by an ecosystem of more than 300 partners, integrations and plug-ins, Cloudinary’s AI-powered image and video solutions offer a single source of truth for brands to manage, transform, optimize, and deliver engaging visual content to anyone, anywhere. As a result, brands across all industries are seeing up to a 203% ROI with benefits including faster time to market, higher user satisfaction and increased engagement and conversions. For more information, visit www.cloudinary.com.
Cloudinary Global Survey: The Trends Reshaping Retail
Two former attorneys and an aide who all worked on President Donald Trump’s 2020 campaign were scheduled to appear Monday for a preliminary hearing in Wisconsin on felony forgery charges related to a fake elector scheme.
The Wisconsin case is moving forward even as others in the battleground states of Michigan and Georgia have faltered. A special prosecutor last year dropped a federal case alleging Trump conspired to overturn the 2020 election. Another case in Nevada is still alive.
The hearing comes a week after Trump attorney Jim Troupis, one of the three who were charged, tried unsuccessfully to get the judge to step down in the case and have it moved to another county. Troupis, who served one year as a judge in the same county where he was charged, also alleged that all of the judges in Dane County are biased against him and he can’t get a fair trial.
Here's the latest:
The fight over California’s new congressional map designed to help Democrats flip congressional House seats will go to court Monday as a panel of federal judges considers whether the district boundaries approved by voters last month can be used in elections.
The hearing in Los Angeles sets the stage for a high-stakes legal and political fight between the Trump administration and Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who’s been eyeing a 2028 presidential run. The lawsuit asks a three-judge panel to grant a temporary restraining order by Dec. 19 — the date candidates can take the first official steps to run in the 2026 election.
Voters approved California’s new U.S. House map in November through Proposition 50. It’s designed to help Democrats flip as many as five congressional House seats in the midterm elections next year. It was Newsom’s response to a Republican-led effort in Texas backed by President Donald Trump.
▶ Read more about California’s redistricting effort
Even though Republican Brian Jack is only a first-term congressman, he has become a regular in the Oval Office these days. As the top recruiter for his party’s House campaign team, the Georgia native is often reviewing polling and biographies of potential candidates with Trump.
Lauren Underwood, an Illinois congresswoman who does similar work for Democrats, has no such West Wing invitation. She is at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue working the phones to identify and counsel candidates she hopes can erase Republicans’ slim House majority in November’s midterm elections.
Although they have little in common, both lawmakers were forged by the lessons of 2018, when Democrats flipped dozens of Republican-held seats to turn the rest of Trump’s first term into a political crucible. Underwood won her race that year, and Jack became responsible for dealing with the fallout when he became White House political director a few months later.
Underwood wants a repeat in 2026, and Jack is trying to stand in her way.
▶ Read more about Underwood and Jack
The Arizona Democrat is emerging as a crucial surrogate for a party desperately seeking to win back the Latino support that slipped in 2024 with the election of President Trump. His fall travels have included trips to New Jersey, Virginia and Florida, where he campaigned for Democrats who went on to win their elections. Strategists say Gallego is flexing his muscle as a rising star for the party while also laying the groundwork for a 2028 presidential run despite not being a household name like California Gov. Gavin Newsom or U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
It’s a role Gallego is expected to continue next year, when Democrats hope to break Republicans’ hold on Congress and counter Trump’s agenda.
“Ruben Gallego is going to be our not-so-secret, secret weapon,” said Maria Cardona, a longtime Democratic operative and member of the Democratic National Committee.
Gallego is among the Democrats named as possible 2028 contenders who had the busiest travel calendar in 2025. He stumped for Democratic female candidates in New Jersey’s and Virginia’s gubernatorial races and Miami’s mayoral race.
▶ Read more about Gallego
Trump said Saturday that “there will be very serious retaliation” after two U.S. service members and one American civilian were killed in an attack in Syria that the United States blames on the Islamic State group.
“This was an ISIS attack against the U.S., and Syria, in a very dangerous part of Syria, that is not fully controlled by them,” he said in a social media post.
The American president told reporters at the White House that Syria’s president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, was “devastated by what happened” and stressed that Syria was fighting alongside U.S. troops. Trump, in his post, said al-Sharaa was “extremely angry and disturbed by this attack.”
U.S. Central Command said three service members were also wounded in the ambush Saturday by a lone IS member in central Syria. Trump said the three “seem to be doing pretty well.” The U.S. military said the gunman was killed in the attack. Syrian officials said the attack wounded members of Syria’s security forces as well.
▶ Read more about the attack
Two former attorneys and an aide who all worked on Trump’s 2020 campaign were scheduled to appear Monday for a preliminary hearing in Wisconsin on felony forgery charges related to a fake elector scheme.
The hearing on Monday comes a week after Trump attorney Jim Troupis, one of the three who were charged, tried unsuccessfully to get the judge to step down in the case and have it moved to another county. Troupis, who was joined by the other two defendants in his motion, alleged that the judge did not write a previous order issued in August declining to dismiss the case. Instead, he accused the father of the judge’s law clerk, who was a retired judge, of actually writing the opinion.
Troupis, who served one year as a judge in the same county where he was charged, also alleged that all of the judges in Dane County are biased against him and he can’t get a fair trial.
▶ Read more about the hearing
President Donald Trump talks to reporters as arrives on the South Lawn of the White House, Saturday, Dec. 13, 2025, after attending the Army-Navy game. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
President Donald Trump talks to reporters as he departs from the South Lawn of the White House, Saturday, Dec. 13, 2025, in Washington, en route to Baltimore to attend the Army-Navy football game. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
