We asked our reporters, who play so well with others, to choose a favorite story from 2024 by a Retail Brew colleague.

While working at Portable Restroom Operator Magazine no doubt has its perks and is immensely satisfying, one advantage to working at Retail Brew is that we are consumers like everyone else and constantly learn about the industry based on our own shopping.

Just ask Jeena Sharma. Jeena, who covers luxury brands, was putting her money where her beat was earlier this year. Jeena ordered a Bottega Veneta mini cassette bag (which apparently is a trendy handbag that has nothing to do with analog recording devices) that was marked down to just (!) $700.

So imagine Jeena’s surprise and disappointment when her package arrived and she opened it to find the box…empty. While Jeena didn’t get her bag, she still had her reporter hat (it’s made of mulberry silk, naturally), which she donned to get to the bottom of the possible reasons her package arrived empty.

Here’s the lede:

A few months ago, I excitedly awaited the arrival of a mini cassette bag from Bottega Veneta that I was able to get for ~$700 during a sale at a major online retailer. However, all my expectations were crushed when I opened the suspiciously light package to discover the patented box was…completely empty. I couldn’t believe I had just spent $700 to receive absolutely nothing.

After a lot of back and forth, a representative from the retailer told me they had conducted an investigation and decided to refund me.

One TikTok shopper reportedly received a dupe of a luxury item they ordered on Saks Fifth Avenue. Another got, in one now-infamous case, a can of tuna when the customer ordered a $275 Dolce & Gabbana ashtray. At the time of posting those videos, the customers alleged they had contacted Saks but were not refunded. (The customer who received the tuna did ultimately get the ashtray and a $100 gift card.)

So what might be going on?

Read the original story: Why are some luxury shoppers getting empty boxes when shopping online?—AAN

Earlier this year, Jeena started a recurring series, called Voices of Tomorrow, in which she highlights people of color who are reshaping the retail industry. In March, she featured Jaipur Living CEO Asha Chaudhary:

Let’s take a quick journey back to 1978 in India, where a young man named Nand Kishore Chaudhary decided to revitalize the textiles and furnishing industry with two looms and nine artisans. The result: Jaipur Living, a rug and furnishings company where artisans had full autonomy as the business involved no middleman.

More than forty-five years later, Asha Chaudhary, the founder’s daughter and now the company’s CEO, is at the center of it all the way over in Acworth, Georgia, where she oversees its US operations.

Read the whole story here.—JS

These were our most-read stories about e-commerce in 2024:

• Why are some luxury shoppers getting empty boxes when shopping online?
• Walmart is rewiring its e-commerce strategy with generative AI
• Why Walmart’s e-commerce business is growing so fast
• How TikTok Shop is ‘reimagining’ Black Friday-Cyber Monday
• Poshmark CEO talks resale trends and the future of live shopping
• Why a $2.99 Trader Joe’s mini-tote is being sold for $700 on eBay
• TikTok Shop hikes seller fees to grow its e-commerce business
• DoorDash is zeroing in on this ‘overlooked’ retail segment
• Amazon is terminating some wholesale vendor accounts, leaving affected brands anxious ahead of the holidays
• How resale will keep growing, but differently, in 2024