This year, brands and retailers faced a myriad of changes. Inflation went up, demand for some products went down and marketing became an increasingly difficult nut to crack.

This week on the Modern Retail Podcast, our reporters sat down and talked about the biggest themes they wrote about. They ran the gamut -- from consumer demand shifts to price fluctuations to the difficulties many c-suites faced.

Senior reporter Melissa Daniels spoke about shifts in consumer sentiment that led to product and marketing changes. "There were some big shifts in what people were buying," she said. For example, home goods were huge during the 2020 and 2021 but started to stagnate this last year.

This impacted even the biggest players, according to reporter Maria Monteros. Retailers like Target miscalculated demand early in 2022, and that hurt profits throughout the entire year. "I think they really expected that growth to continue," she said. "And so they ordered a lot of these goods, only to find out that consumer spending has really shifted from discretionary items to travel and experiences."

This is just a snippet of the wide-reaching conversation that covered all the ups and downs the retail industry faced this year.