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)

Keep reading here.—EW

We asked our reporters, who play so well with others, to choose a favorite story from 2022 by a Retail Brew colleague.

Andrew Adam Newman has a unique ability as a writer to make absolutely anything interesting, engaging, and fun to read. Job listings by Andy? I’d apply, no questions asked. Fiscal reports by Andy? I’d read every word. Tax help by Andy? Sign. Me. Up.

Needless to say, when I sat down to pick my favorite, there were many contenders. I almost chose this one, about how there’s an entire industry dedicated to selling glasses to people who have perfect vision, or this one, about ambient scent in retail stores.

But ultimately, my top Andy story of 2022 is this deep dive into how one NYC ice cream store blew right by the city’s ban on cashless businesses…until the city government took notice. It’s the second installment of his reporting on the cashless law, and writing it involved filing a freedom of information request, and then combing through data spanning nearly two years. Andy takes the story of one brand’s battle against a local law, and puts it in the broader context of cashless policies and corporate responses to unbanked consumers.

But what wasn’t revealed in the consent decree…was just how defiant Van Leeuwen seemed to be when it came to breaking the law—a law hard to shrug off with its purpose that lower-income residents who wish to pay with cash should not be turned away. Along with receiving more complaints from consumers about Van Leeuwen refusing to accept cash than any other business, the city issued the company more fines for doing so than it issued to all other businesses in the city combined.

Not what you were expecting from a family-favorite sweet-treat brand, huh? Leave it to Andy to dig deeper into a story than anyone else. I hope he got some ice cream out of it at least!—MA

Read the whole story by Andrew Adam Newman here.

It’s not easy understanding Gen Z, but as the generation’s retail spending power grows, getting inside their heads is increasingly important.

Our own Katishi Maake was up to the challenge this year, finding two fascinating and well-spoken subjects—Madison Semarjian, 24, founder of fashion-curation app Mada, and Ana Kannan, 23, founder of sustainability-focused apparel marketplace Toward—to shed light on what Zoomers really want when it comes to retail.

The result is an informative and succinct piece that perfectly balances the founders’ personal experiences and the wider Gen Z perspective. It’s got both surprising stats and well-selected, eloquent insights like this one:

“Sometimes [retailers] try to have all the bells and whistles, and that’s not necessarily the best way to do it,” Semarjian said. “Don’t give me access to the world; give me better access to things that I want to see in my world and what’s relevant for me.”

Bottom line: This story will make you a Gen Z-enius.—EC

Read the whole story by Katishi Maake here.

Rounding up some of the best store design reads of the year:

Best bet: Best Buy introduced a smaller store format earlier this year with a digital-first edge. The move was also an attempt to compete with some of the retail heavy hitters, like Target and Amazon, which are also experimenting with new stores. (The Street, July)

Fresh fit: You know the Everything Store eventually had to try its hand at fashion. Amazon opened its Amazon Style concept that makes use of touchscreens and QR codes to “make trying on clothes easier.” (Insider, May)

Beauty behind the madness: Ulta’s new concept reimagines how the retailer thinks about its merchandising, doing away with the prestige and mass split that stores are typically divided into, but rather housing new categories. (WWD, November)

Defying expectations: Taco Bell Defy, the two-story, four-lane new drive-thru concept the chain opened earlier this year, is meant to usher in the future of fast food. It’s a future where mobile orders account for the majority of orders and customers can seamlessly get their hands on that Gordita Crunch faster than ever. (The Washington Post, June)

On target: Target went big this year with a new 150,000-square-foot store concept, roughly 20,000 square feet larger than a typical location. Why? The expanded backroom offers fulfillment space for digital orders. (Winsight Grocery Business, November)

We also rounded up some of our favorite retail-related stories of the year from our sibling Brews.

Upstream: Streamers like Amazon and Peacock have fewer ad breaks. That should come as no surprise as anyone. But how they’re making up for it might: the time-honored tradition of product placement. (Marketing Brew)

Off the rails: Just what exactly are the ramifications for the supply chain if rail traffic were, well, derailed? The mere possibility of a national railroad strike would seriously disrupt not only the movement of freight, but the US economy itself. (CFO Brew)

Up-front: Businesses striving to reduce turnover among frontline, hourly workers would do well to consider investing in job quality by, say, providing good pay and benefits for all their employees. (HR Brew)

Autopilot: Way back in March, FedEx announced it was planning to test a cargo-carrying autonomous, hybrid-electric vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) system in “early 2023.” The Elroy Air craft can travel 300 miles and carry 300–500 pounds, according to the company. (Emerging Tech Brew)

Catch up on the Retail Brew stories you may have missed this year.

• Gassed mile: How the USPS’s decision not to purchase more electric vehicles could collide with retailers
• The Korres in-store recycling lab in NYC is giving beauty empties a second chance
• How American Giant got buy-in from its supply chain before its customers