Retail Brew’s most popular stories of 2021

We published a whole lot of stories this year. We hope you were into all of them, but these were the ones Retail Brew readers were really into. Check out our most popular pieces of 2021 below:

In some on-the-ground reporting, we stepped inside Jokr’s Williamsburg hub this summer to see what goes down behind the scenes. “If you build the infrastructure and you have the right logistics, you can sell anything in 15 minutes. That’s the future,” Tyler Trerotola, who helps lead the instant-delivery startup’s US operation, told us.

And, when Amazon One, Amazon’s palm payments system, arrived in New York City, we had to try it for ourselves. Our verdict: It was definitely convenient. But there’s work to be done to convince consumers to get super hands-on.

Even we can’t do a year-end wrap-up without mentioning Squid Game. We spoke to a couple of Etsy sellers on how they capitalized on the craze for Halloween.

This year, we also partnered with Emerging Tech Brew on a guide to all things virtual fitting rooms. For retailers, the key is cutting down on returns as e-comm takes off. “When someone is looking at a product, a certain percentage of people will always bracket: They’ll buy three, four, five sizes of the same item in the same color because they know that they want to get the one that’s going to fit them,” explained Richard Berwick, cofounder of virtual try-on tech company Drapr (which was acquired by Gap).

• “If we can add confidence to that user...to the point where they are going to buy one size, we just reduced a significant number of returns.”

When Paper Source filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in March, some small vendors felt blindsided—and shared how they’re now rethinking their retail strategy.

It’s not just you: There are some shady reviews on Amazon. We spoke to ReviewMeta, one of a few options for online shoppers who want a reality check.

We also chatted with the cofounders of Canal, a platform that emerged out of stealth this year and links DTC brands with “like-minded” companies. “We’re not the shelf or the products you put on the shelf. We are your access to inventory,” CEO Bennett Carroccio said.

Who knew selling cookie-box drops would be a viable biz? Not Matthew Jung—at least not before he joined Last Crumb. The CEO told us about the company’s successful strategy.

And in an exclusive, we dropped the news about Roman’s first retail partnership, which put its men’s health and wellness products in more than 4,600 Walmart stores.

One more buzzworthy piece: Here’s why the cannabis beverage market is bubbling with brands.—GT