Tech companies have made smartphones central to work, relationships, entertainment, and lately, shopping. According to eMarketer, mobile commerce is expected to almost double its share of annual US retail sales by 2025, to 10.4%—or $728+ billion. It makes sense retail players want in on something a person touches an average of 2,617 times per day.

In many cases, that means developing an app.

Platforms range from the wellness-focused Nike Run Club to Juicy Couture’s in-app product drops to Urban Outfitters’ scrollable marketplace. Regardless of the app’s function—to facilitate purchases or build loyalty—the point is to stay on the consumer’s mind by staying on their home screen.

“The reality is there’s a default behavior that happens when people open up their phones, and they tend to use what’s in front of them,” eMarketer analyst Andrew Lipsman told Retail Brew. “As a retailer, if your app is not downloaded onto somebody’s phone at a moment when they’re opening [it up] for a shopping occasion, you’re already out of the consideration set.”

Flashback: EBay and Amazon were the go-to shopping apps for years, but Lipsman pointed to Target’s introduction of its Cartwheel discounts program—which incorporated mobile coupons in a standalone app—as a “big moment” for the space. “All of a sudden, [the] app took off,” he said. Around the same time, Walmart rolled out its Savings Catcher tool to phones. Kohl’s and others followed in what Lipsman calls the “second era of retail apps” around the mid-2010s.

It provided key insight: “The expectation of use, of frequency, is a big determinant on whether or not people download an app in the first place,” Lipsman explained.

Fast-forward

A mobile-first world calls for a mobile-first brand, and that’s exactly what DTC intimates company Adore Me considers itself. “We’re a tech-heavy organization. Every single design is done for mobile first, and then gets translated to desktop after,” VP of strategy Ranjan Roy told us.

Why start with the phone? Probably because 92% of Adore Me’s traffic happens on a mobile device. Its app, which has 5 million downloads, accounts for 10% of total traffic and 45% of revenue. (Roy declined to share specific figures.)

Roy emphasized the importance of having control over the mobile shopping experience and responding to the “unpredictability of the user” with seamless checkout and a cart that doesn’t disappear if you leave it alone for an hour, for example.

• Adore Me has recently started experimenting with app-only discounts and offers to “add a little bit more of an incentive to download and use the app,” he noted.

Click here to read more about how Adore Me—and Athleta—think about their app experiences.—JG

Workers across the US are calling it quits in record numbers. In November alone, a whopping 4.5 million workers left their jobs, per yesterday’s Labor Department’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS).

• The accommodations and food-service industries led the exodus, with ~1 million quits in the leisure and hospitality space.

It’s a tough time to work on the ground, noted Claire Tassin, a retail and e-commerce analyst at Morning Consult. Jobs now come with added responsibilities, such as “enforcing mask requirements…and covering shifts for coworkers dealing with Covid isolation,” she told us in an email.

What to do? Employers, particularly restaurants, should try to simplify things. Emily Moquin, a food and beverage analyst also at Morning Consult, suggested “streamlining menus and payment methods” for one. (That should also let workers focus on the customer.)

Otherwise, companies will have to pay up. “Employers are asking more of their employees, and compensation and benefits need to reflect that reality,” Tassin added.

• A number of retailers and restaurants have already taken that note, boosting hourly rates last year; Stephanie Pugliese, Under Armour’s president of the Americas, previously told us that competitive wages are here to stay.

But Morning Consult’s Kayla Bruun said that might be what’s driving workers to look around. “It’s a bit of a self-reinforcing cycle: Rising wages make workers more likely to seek opportunity elsewhere, they switch roles to achieve higher pay, which in turn drives up average wage growth.”—JS

Today’s top retail reads.

Crystal-balling: From more automation to more ready-to-assemble meals to more ultrafast delivery, here are seven trends that will define grocery this year. (Grocery Dive)

Lipstick rogue: Beauty brands are taking aim at unauthorized sellers on Amazon. “You spend all this money to build up brand equity and a story. And then, as a consumer, you go on Amazon and it feels like you’re going to a flea market,” said Steve Strong, COO of SuperOrdinary. (Glossy)

Crushing it: A deep dive into plastic’s long and colorful (and colorless) history in products and packaging—and the toll it takes on the environment. (The Atlantic)

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

But today, we’re introducing Andrew Adam Newman, our new senior reporter.

Andy’s covered everything from kosher dog food to a deodorant ad that offended the entire state of New Jersey, and even interviewed Betty White (sniff) over his last mumble-mumble decades in journalism. Like many of our Brew Crew, we haven’t met in person yet (so jury’s out on how tall he is until then), but we’re so excited to have him on board.

How would you describe your job to someone who doesn’t work in retail? I look for insights into emerging retail trends that are illuminating and counterintuitive, and I seek interviewees who are good talkers to help light the way.

One thing we can’t guess about you from your LinkedIn profile: I’ve become obsessed with making latté art in my tiny New York kitchen. Also, everyone calls me Andy, but I’ve adopted the pretentious full-name byline since moving to New York because of The Other Andy Newman (TOAN) at The New York Times.

What’s your favorite project you’ve worked on? For obvious reasons right now I’m recalling a piece I wrote for The New York Times about Fruit of the Loom. In a promotion with LinkedIn, users who’d recently listed a new job were sent a LinkedIn message offering them a free pair of underwear, because—well, like the underwear itself, it was kind of a stretch.

An emerging retail trend that you’re most excited about this year: I’ve been using virtual try-on to buy eyeglass frames online since the earliest and crudest versions of the technology, and it’s exciting to see how much more elegant the technology is becoming, and how it’s being used in so many more categories.

Hands down, the best fast food restaurant chain is…A&W—they *still* serve root beer in a frosted mug.

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

• Will the e-commerce spin-off trend continue in 2022?
• “There will always be an appetite for mall-based shopping”: Draper James’s CEO on the brand’s brick-and-mortar plans
• The evolution of buy now, pay later