This week on Commerce Code we speak with Debby Lee, Senior Director of Partnerships at Cartera, A Rakuten Company. As a division of Rakuten, Cartera is the largest source of Shop & Earn offers in the U.S. and Canada. And as we found out in the interview, Rakuten means “optimism” in Japanese. Indeed it’s an optimistic episode this week as we’re talking about the consumer in 2024 and holiday shopping as we round out 2023. We hit: Changes in consumer behavior - “the great trade-down” to more affordable brandsPersistent spending among affluent consumersHow this impacts loyalty program planning and execution in the coming year, and finallya look at how Black Friday and Cyber Monday performed and what that may mean for the rest of holiday shopping this year.