In today's competitive retail market, providing real-time product recommendations and services has become a must-do for online retailers, especially during the busy holiday season. Luckily, the secret ingredient is one they already have: connected data.

The trick is knowing how to leverage this data. For example, in the case of providing online product recommendations, it often requires drawing insights from connections between a customer's past purchases and the product or promotion that makes the most sense based on their interests – via their social network footprint and previous buying patterns.

Fortunately, graph databases offer an invaluable framework for making sense of such super-connected data. In this slideshow, Neo Technology offers a look at how three major brands — Walmart, eBay and adidas Group — are leveraging graph databases to power commerce this holiday season and beyond.