Your pasta maker misses you. Your juicer, too. They’ve formed a support group with your spiralizer down in the basement. Where, they wonder, did the love go?

Some trendy kitchen appliances that seem like must-haves because they’ll make us healthier, hipper, or more dazzling hosts end up having limited functionality or are daunting to use or clean. We put them on the wedding registry, but by the time we’re writing the thank-you notes, we’re over them.

But the air fryer, which promises the crispiness of deep frying without all the fat, has settled in on the kitchen counter—and doesn’t appear to be going anywhere soon:

• US consumers spent $958 million on air fryers in 2022, a 51.3% increase from 2019, when they spent $633 million, according to data from Circana (formerly NPD Group).
• Air fryers were in 36% of households in 2020, which Joe Derochowski, VP and home industry advisor at Circana, told Retail Brew he expects to increase when he updates the research next month.

“In terms of household penetration,” air fryers are “now getting in the ballpark of toaster ovens and single-serve coffee makers,” Derochowski said. He added that an appliance like the air fryer that promised crispy food was bound to catch on.

“Crunchy was always one of the top mouthfeels that people want,” Derochowski said.

So how did appliance brands help the air fryer trend get cooking? And with consumers less homebound than at the height of the pandemic, can the appliance stay relevant rather than going the way of the electric can opener?

Keep reading here.—AAN

Social media is the land of business opportunity. And with the right strategy, selling directly through your social accounts can make a major difference in your bottom line.

According to LinkedIn, 78% of brands that use social outsell their offline peers. So if you wanna be on the right side of that stat, check out Square’s guide to social selling.

Part 1 of the guide: strategy. There are a lot of ways to sell across social media—social media marketing, social commerce, social selling. Square outlines how to incorporate these tactics into your social strategy so you can easily streamline your efforts.

From there, Square outlines 6 key tips (with context) to help you tee up your brand’s social selling. They cover insights to look at, reliable tools to leverage, and much more.

Grab the guide and grow your social selling strategy.

Leveraging blockchain technology to boost customer engagement is still a fairly nascent concept. Loyalty NFT test cases have been primarily on the fringes of the retail world, including for under-the-radar coffee subscriptions or high-end wines.

But many of retail’s most influential founders and trendsetters have been quietly investing in blockchain-based loyalty: Outdoor Voices founder Ty Haney is betting on blockchain to help brands build community, and both Starbucks and Nike have turned to NFTs to create enhanced, invite-only loyalty programs.

Ben Leventhal, who founded Resy and Eater, debuted his latest attempt to disrupt the restaurant sector, Web3 membership platform Blackbird Labs, late last year.

Blackbird is using a mix of traditional and Web3 tools to “[enhance] connectivity between individual restaurants and their guests,” Leventhal wrote on Substack at the time.

He’s kept Blackbird’s plans fairly under wraps, but in December, described one of Blackbird’s projects as “a visual way of collecting restaurant perks that will ultimately make the dining and restaurant discovery experience just that much more fun.”

In the following months, Leventhal teased upcoming projects but kept the full extent of his vision quiet, weighing in on loyalty stamps, the problems with dynamic pricing, and the enduring success of the American diner.

It wasn’t until this spring that Blackbird began unveiling beta projects in New York and giving the industry a glimpse into its plans to revamp what it means to be a regular.

Keep reading here.—MA

As prices stay high, consumers continue to buy, at least according to the latest round of retail earnings results.

Procter & Gamble bumped up prices by 10% last month, but reported its organic sales rose 7%, and subsequently raised its annual forecast on its fiscal third-quarter earnings call last week. CFO Andre Schulten noted on the call that “the US consumer is holding up well.”

• Kleenex maker Kimberly-Clark, which has raised its prices by 10% for two straight quarters, also recently reported rising sales.

PepsiCo also boosted its annual forecast, this week reporting that a 16% price bump in Q1 led to strong results for the quarter. Coca-Cola also saw rising sales, which it attributed to both higher prices and volumes, though chairman and CEO James Quincey said it foresees “pricing moderating” this year.

• Nestlé, which increased prices by nearly 10% in the quarter, said this week its sales rose 5.6%, with a small 0.5% volume decline. CFO François-Xavier Roger said that in relation to higher pricing, “demand elasticity and consumer downtrading remained limited.”

This consistent consumer demand could contribute to continued high prices, Dhruv Grewal, professor of marketing, commerce, and electronic business at Babson College, told Retail Brew last month. It gives companies “less of an incentive to want to back down to a lower price” because they’ve yet to see a hit to their bottom lines, he said.

Keep reading here.—EC

Today’s top retail reads.

Yeehaw: If you’ve been paying close attention, you’ll have noticed that the fashion world has caught the cowboy bug. The Western look is back, and brands are capitalizing on the renewed popularity of cowboy boots and denim around the world. (Business of Fashion)

Something blue: The largest jeweler in the US, Signet Jewelers, which owns brands including Jared, Zales, and Kay Jewelers, says sales of engagement rings are down, noting that as pandemic-era relationships fizzled, a notable decline in dating has followed. (CNN)

Check this out: People shop online for ease and convenience, but it turns out there are still obstacles. A Bolt survey found that 22% of shoppers say a lengthy checkout process and having to fill out forms is one of the biggest impediments to online shopping. Nearly a third (33%) said forgetting their login information is the biggest headache. (WWD)

The numbers you need to know.

It’s pretty common for retailers to collect data on their shoppers. It’s also not so unusual for shoppers to have concerns about the practice. New survey data suggests that consumers are much more willing to give up their info if they get something in return.

Two surveys from Publicis Sapient and YouGov on customer data and loyalty found that 85% of those surveyed in the US are “extremely/very/somewhat” concerned about any company using their data.

• The starkest difference appeared between older and younger respondents, with 60% of people 55 and older expressing concern versus 25% of those 18-34 in the US.

But it turns out data mining is a give-and-take relationship. Almost three-quarters of respondents in the US (73%) are willing to share data for deals, and 65% are “extremely likely” to opt-in to share their info if they’ll get exclusive sales in return.

• At the same time, more than half (55%) want companies to explain how their data is used.

Globally, consumers belong to six loyalty programs on average but only actively use three at a time; in the US, shoppers surveyed belong to eight such programs and use four. More than 75% of global consumers, and 77% in the US, prefer savings over other advantages and rewards.

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

• Resale is paying close attention to emerging technologies
• How MyTheresa plans to stand out as a luxury e-tailer in the US
• The CBA’s CEO breaks down the top issues in CPG