Not dead: stores. Retailers opened over 4,200 stores midway through 2022 in the US (outpacing 1,766 announced store closings). Heightened demand for in-person shopping — especially of the affordable kind — saw dollar stores (followed by other low-price leaders like Aldi and Five Below) top the openings list. Brick-and-mortar stores continue to be key to engaging consumers and play an important role in retailers’ omnichannel strategies.
Tres commas. Seven new energy tech unicorns emerged in Q2’22, bringing the total herd to 24. Most of the quarter’s new unicorns were born in the energy storage and renewable energy sectors, a trend largely driven by a historic rise in the price of conventional fossil fuels.
Scraping the bottom. Overdraft fees — those $30 or so charges incurred when you spend more than what’s in your checking account — make banks in the US billions of dollars every year. During the pandemic, revenue from these fees fell as consumers pulled back on spending, stimulus checks hit accounts, and banks waived fees. Under pressure from challenger banks, which have drawn in customers with no-fee bank offerings, some banks like Citigroup and Capital One have ditched overdraft fees altogether.
Running up that Capitol Hill. Even as chaos descended on the crypto markets, the industry kept up its lobbying spend. Collectively, crypto firms spent $6.8M in Q2’22, a nearly 17% increase from the previous quarter that was driven by crypto exchanges. During that same timeframe, crypto’s value dropped from $2T to under $900B.
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