Retail Brew’s year in review 2022: Delivery, discounts, and a look back

Congratulations! You’ve made it to the final piece of our month-by-month breakdown of the year in retail, a (mostly) chronological look at the industry in 2022 as seen in our own reporting.

Q4 was all about delivery, discounts, and looking back (for us). But be sure to peruse the rest of the year:

Jump to: Q1 | Q2 | Q3

October

📆 Our theme of the month: Delivered in full

Delivery is one segment (among many) that’s undergoing significant change, so in the run-up to what promised to be yet another busy holiday season, we dug right in.

🗞️ Grabbing the headlines:

• Experts say a federal rule defining worker status may change the world of deliveries
• Delivery execs from Kroger, Walmart, and Shein tell us their main priorities
• Startup, legacy delivery companies try to solve the last-mile puzzle
• How two convenience stores are optimizing their delivery by prioritizing customer experience over speed

❤️ Your favorite:

• Adore Me’s push to become eco-friendly isn’t landing with shoppers, but they’re doing it anyway

📖 Well worth the read:

• Our own Erin Cabrey teamed up with Marketing Brew’s Kelsey Sutton for an in-depth report on how a confluence of factors is driving DTC brands marketing channels not named (or owned by) Meta. (DTC advertisers, once reliant on Facebook and Instagram, are looking at different—and less expensive—marketing platforms)

🎗 Remember this:

• Andrew Adam Newman caught a ride in a DHL delivery truck, one of 51 fully electric vehicles in DHL’s last-mile delivery fleet in Manhattan, to see how the carrier’s efforts to electrify are coming along. (We went for a ride-along with a DHL driver to see what he thinks of their electric-vehicle fleet)

November

📆 Our theme of the month: Discount deluge

Between Singles Day, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday, November was all about sales, sales, sales, and how retailers sought to capitalize.

🗞️ Grabbing the headlines:

• Prime Day, Target Deal Days offer lessons on discounting this holiday shopping season
• How discounting impacts a luxury retailer’s brand image
• Why print circulars aren’t dead yet
• Consumers are using this food-waste app to cut down their food spending
• Coupon and cash-back services navigate tough economic times for shoppers

❤️ Your favorite:

• Behind the curtain of NYC department stores’ holiday window displays

📖 Well worth the read:

• “The retail landscape is changing rapidly, and the warehousing industry is changing with it,” wrote Maeve Allsup, who took an enlightening look at why companies are eyeing Phoenix, Las Vegas, Savannah, and Dallas, among other locales, as potential warehouse hubs. (Here’s where experts say the next warehouse hotspots will be)

🦜 Quote of the month:

• “Is two-day shipping just kind of this expectation developed and pushed by one retailer in particular? Yes, it is…Amazon created this golden standard that consumers were not expecting—or not in need of.”—Melissa Minkow, director of retail strategy at CI&T (Two-day shipping: A solution for a problem that probably doesn’t exist)

December

📆 Our theme of the month: Year in review

That’s right: It’s the year in review…in review. But we covered so much more, and we don’t want it to get lost in the holiday shuffle.

🗞️ Grabbing the headlines:

• What the retail industry learned about Web3 and the metaverse in 2022
• What we learned about sustainability in fashion in 2022
• Why everyone got sold on resale in 2022
• Three takeaways from the food & bev world in 2022

📖 Well worth the read:

• Jeean Sharma posed the following question: “Are all [Victoria’s Secret’s rebranding] efforts more than just a marketing gimmick and if so, are consumers actually buying it?” And then she answered it. (Victoria’s Secret’s road to redemption is a lesson in shifting brand perception)

🦜 Quote of the month:

• “I’m not trying to start a beverage brand here.”—Cove CEO and founder Alex Totterman, who created a beverage brand (The first biodegradable water bottle just hit stores—will consumers pay the premium price?)

🎗️ Remember this:

• “Retailers don’t like returns, but why?” wrote Katishi Maake in Part II of the three-part series Diminishing Returns. Short answer: Cost, logistics nightmares, shall we continue? There are, however, “some things retailers could consider to recoup even a fraction of what’s lost in the process.” (Retailers grapple with the financial impact of the returns process)

🤯 And we’ll leave you with this:

• “[Unilever’s] Hourglass Red 0 lipstick, released earlier this year, uses a vegan replacement for carmine, a commonly used lipstick pigment that requires crushing 1,000 female beetles per tube to produce,” wrote Erin Cabrey. (How Unilever is using AI to improve its products)