These days, DoorDash delivery drivers aren’t just toting around takeout orders. Many so-called “Dashers,” to use the company’s parlance, now deliver a wide range of products, and this spring an increasing number of them are hauling bags of mulch to customers.

The delivery platform entered a partnership with Lowe’s earlier this month, and the hefty lawn care item is a favorite among customers, according to Fuad Hannon, VP of new verticals at DoorDash.

The partnership is the company’s first foray into the home improvement category and the latest addition to its growing portfolio of non-restaurant partners, a part of the business that it’s made a concerted effort to expand in recent years.

Keep reading here.—AV

Do you sell or market your biz online? Uh, it’s 2024, so of course you do. These days, digital success looks like increasing revenue, tapping into new opportunities quickly, and maintaining a consistent brand identity. Oh, and efficiency. You need that, too.

Tackle the whole task list with the new white paper from Feedonomics: Why Product Feed Management Is the Backbone of Crucial Ecommerce Processes.

Feedonomics identifies five key operational processes your biz needs to operate with consistency to hit your goals:

• product listing
• catalog optimization
• order management
• data synchronization
• data protection

The full white paper includes deets on the challenges behind each process, how a feed management platform empowers enterprise businesses to master them, and how to unlock scalable growth.

Come and get it.

US shoppers once again surprised Wall Street with a higher-than-expected jump in retail sales. The latest federal data shows sales rose 0.7% in March from the previous month, and 4% from the same period the year before, and economists are pointing the finger squarely at the labor market to explain the uptick.

“The ebullient gains in employment and sturdy wage growth provides consumers the income wherewithal to keep spending at a rapid pace,” Nationwide Chief Economist Kathy Bostjancic wrote in a research briefing.

The biggest winners were nonstore retailers, whose sales grew 2.7% from February and 11.3% YoY, the largest annual increase of any category.

Keep reading here.—AV

On Wednesdays, we wear pink spotlight Retail Brew’s readers. Want to be featured in an upcoming edition? Click here to introduce yourself.

Arjun Reddy is SVP of revenue at Disco, a post-purchase ad network working with brands like Liquid IV, Ouai, and Ilia.

How would you describe your job to someone who doesn’t work in retail? I view my job as a game in one way: How do we drive awareness of Disco to DTC brands and tell our story in the right way across every touchpoint we have with these prospects? There are so many ways to use budget to achieve that goal (e.g. partnerships, ads, events, dinners, webinars), and some of these tactics will work for us and some will not. My job is to make decisions based on the input and opinions of my amazing team. The other part is to deliver on the promises we make to our customers. We have to support and communicate with them in the right way and at the right cadence. We have to deliver results that help our customers achieve their primary end goal: profitable growth.

One thing we can’t guess about your job from your LinkedIn profile? I have a two-year-old son and balancing childcare and work is a very real thing (especially in the evening). I’m grateful to work at a company that is supportive of protected time. And for anyone with kids—pretty hard to respond to emails/Slacks when your two-year-old is slamming the keyboard!

Keep reading here.—EC

Clock into something easier. Embrace a modern scheduling solution that improves the employee experience and reduces excessive turnover. Paylocity makes it easy to track part-time, hourly, and seasonal schedules—and optimize your day-to-day operations with onboarding and payroll tools that just…work. See how it all adds up.