The Modern Retail Dictionary, 2024 edition: The real meanings behind the buzzwords used to explain retail’s weird year
Consumers were a lot of things this year: They were picky, they were discerning, they were voting with their wallets, the list goes on.
In turn, it was a weird year for the retail industry. While some retailers did do well, others were disappointed by another year of declining sales. But there’s one thing retailers can always turn to to explain away poor performance: buzzwords.
In the sixth edition of our Modern Retail Dictionary, we look back at the most popular (and meaningless) words in the industry and try our best to explain why executives are saying what they’re saying. It was a year filled with deal fatigue seasonal moments, as executives sought ways to surprise and delight the customer while delivering on value. In other words, executives came up with a bunch of ways to describe the fact that customers were looking for deals first and foremost.
Let’s hope we can retire a few of these in the months to come.
AppLovin: The customer acquisition channel DTC brands will talk about for one month before moving onto the next shiny thing.
AI: The basis of all of our flashy launches that will be sunset within two years’ time.
Better-for-you: We added 20 grams of protein to this.
Buy now, pay later: What people are using to finance their holiday gifts.
Chatbot: Can answer one of five basic customer service questions.
ChatGPT: What replaced seven of our eight copywriters.
Competitive landscape: All of our competitors are cheaper than us.
De minimis: Why your new sandals from Temu only cost $2.25
Deal fatigue: We wish customers would buy things at full price again.
Financial media networks: How the country’s biggest banks are trying to become even bigger.
Gamification: The thing we’re adding to our websites because we’re threatened by Temu.
Gen Beta: We’re moving on from Gen Alpha to literal embryos.
Hydration brand: We sell electrolytes.
Inflation: The thing we blamed poor business performance on in 2024.
IPO: What’s that? Maybe in 2025.
Lifestyle collaboration: We did a branded smoothie.
Livestreaming: We’re on TikTok.
Meet the customer where they are: I guess we’ll sell on Temu now, why not.
NFTs: Something we will never talk about again.
Offshoring: Oh god, we have to do this again, don’t we?.
Retail media network: We put TVs on our endcaps and added banner ads to our website.
Retail influencer: The new QVC host.
Roblox: A gaming platform where your kid spends all their allowance.
Shoppable ads: How brands are ruining your favorite TV show.
Seasonal moments: Let’s find a way to recreate the pumpkin spice craze.
Surprise and delight: Price cuts.
Tariffs: The thing we’ll blame poor business performance on in 2025.
Temu: The new dollar store.
TikTok: We hope it’s still around in 2025!
Value-oriented: We’re always on sale.
Wellness: We’re not in the beauty space, but we want to make it seem like we are.
Wicked collaboration: We made something pink and/or green.
YouTube: Where we’re moving our ad dollars if TikTok gets banned.