The 11 most important retail products and services of the decade, according to a team of product journalists and reviewers

When I was younger, I always wished there was some sort of tracking device I could put on my important items like my Nintendo DS or any jacket that I brought to school because I was always losing or misplacing things. I have yet to outgrow my talent for losing things, and to this day I am always forgetting where I put my keys or wallet.

I attach these Tile trackers to every important item that accompanies me on a daily basis. I love that the small tracking devices are easy to detach in case I want to slip them into any items I might have to leave unattended at events such as bags and coats.

Not only have I been able to track down items using the Tile app on my phone, but I've also been able to track down my phone after it was stolen when I was in Europe through my Tile account, which was somehow more accurate than the Find my Phone function on iCloud. Eight-year-old me would have been very grateful that these little tracking devices were finally invented. —Ciannah Gin, editorial fellow

If I had to define my childhood by a single ritual, it'd be visiting my local library. My brother and I would wind the aisles of books, load up our tote bags with dozens of paperbacks, devour them anywhere we could, and then return a few weeks later to repeat the process.

Since then, the means of diving into worlds both fictional and real has modernized: In 2007, Amazon introduced the Kindle e-reader to make reading more convenient, not to mention connect itself to its origins as an online bookstore. The first Kindle retailed for $399 but it's now only $90, and Kindle has expanded from a single device to a family of lightweight and high-performance e-readers.

The Paperwhite was introduced in 2012 and is the most popular Kindle device in the series, featuring a 300 dpi, glare-free display that never strains your eyes, built-in adjustable light, large storage capacity, and long battery life, all for a reasonable price.

I felt like I was betraying my roots when I got my first Kindle Paperwhite, but I haven't looked back since. To my delight, I can still borrow books from the library, but I no longer have to weigh my bag down to do it. Though traditionalists may lament the physical detachment from the look, smell, and feel of a "real" book, Kindle devices ultimately serve to increase your book consumption, which I believe is and will continue to be a worthwhile trade-off. —Connie Chen, senior reporter

I wouldn't call myself a particularly fit person, but ClassPass has changed my outlook on fitness through the sheer variety of classes it offers, especially in New York.

At the start of the decade, workout classes were seldom seen outside of local gyms and community centers. Since then, boutique fitness classes like spinning, barre, and HIIT have become both increasingly popular and more costly. ClassPass flipped this industry on its head through its business model: One monthly fee affords members a certain number of credits that can be used toward a variety of workout classes in a variety of gyms, eliminating the need to commit to just one type or place.

ClassPass credits can be used toward anything from boxing to barre at a tiered monthly fee, and almost all of the pricing options are cheaper than the average monthly gym membership. For the first time in my life, I look forward to working out, and I feel empowered when I leave a class (my favorites offered by ClassPass are Rumble and Y7). Most importantly, ClassPass has allowed me to build a stress reliever into my life. —Emily Hein, content production fellow

I can't remember a world before the advent of food delivery services — and I don't want to. Personally, I find services like DoorDash (along with Seamless, Grubhub, and more that were founded even earlier) come in handy all the time. When I have a sudden hankering for a slice of pizza, when I come back home to an empty fridge after a trip, if I have dinner plans but we collectively decide we'd rather eat on the couch than at a restaurant — these are just a handful of such scenarios.

Food delivery services offer mass appeal because they're convenient and easy to use, but they also are fundamentally changing the way we eat. In the past, I think meals at restaurants were seen as more of a luxury, but the ability to order them and eat them in your home kind of changes that perspective. I'm interested to see how this sector continues to evolve. —Remi Rosmarin, reporter

Bombas has, in my humble opinion, fundamentally changed the way we think about socks.

Once an item of clothing we happily purchased in bulk at Target, socks are now a thing we willingly invest in. But that shift didn't come because Marie Kondo told us all to only keep things in our lives that "spark joy," it came because someone made a better version of socks that people were excited to wear.

Bombas makes what I believe to be the best socks in the world. They're designed to account for every annoyance of traditional socks — the uncomfortable toe seams, the slipping heels, the heel fabric wearing through — Bombas socks aren't plagued by any of those ills. Instead, they're exceptionally comfortable and supportive; foundational, if you will. I am happy to pay $14 for a pair of socks that I know I'll never have to think about once they're on. Ten years ago, you couldn't have convinced me there was any pair in the world worth that cost.

It's also worth mentioning that Bombas gives a pair to someone in need for every pair sold. In fact, the goal of providing socks for people experiencing homelessness is the whole reason the company started. It wasn't the first to invent this business model, but that doesn't make its mission any less powerful. —Sally Kaplan, editor

DJI took drone photography from non-existent to a viable and fun choice for anyone. It completely changed how consumers and creatives are able to show off their vision of the world. Previously, unless you happened to have an extra helicopter lying around, you weren't shooting anything from the air.

Within a short few years of consumer drones being introduced, they went from huge and inconvenient enthusiast equipment to something small enough that you could toss in a backpack. Now, the image quality that perfectly captures whatever you want to see, and the devices are smart enough that you can set them to follow you automatically while you bike down a mountain. —Adam Burakowski, director of commerce

The explosion of the bed-in-a-box industry has been one of the greatest retail shakeups of the decade. Beds in a box are faster and more convenient than traditional showrooms, and incentives like free shipping and returns, 100-night sleep trials, and 10-year warranties make it easier for first-timers to justify.

From Tuft & Needle in 2012 to the slew of brands that launched in 2014 (Casper, Leesa, Bear, etc), we've seen the booming success of the industry, which shows so signs of slowing. But no company better represents this upward trend than Casper, with its $1.1 billion valuation in March 2019 and a reported $80 million annual marketing budget. Before 2014, no one had heard of it — now, it's almost impossible to ride the subway or listen to a podcast without interacting with an ad. —Mara Leighton, reporter

The idea of skin-care as self-care has really taken hold in recent years. Alongside sheet masks, we also saw a popularization of the 10-step Korean skin-care routine thanks in part to the globalization of Korean beauty (Korea's exports of cosmetics in 2016 surged more than 40% on-year and beauty exports actually surpassed their imports).

The 10-step routine satisfies a craving for certainty and control; there's security in a deeply scientific and cult-friendly regime, and in having an ampoule or serum for virtually every skin problem. There's also certainty in a regime created specifically for you, by the experts. And it taps into the 2010s' preoccupation with self-improvement by conceptualizing skin-care as a personal investment. I tried a 10-step routine myself, and it felt so good to feel like I had all the answers to at least one big, important test. Plus, my skin looked better. —Mara Leighton, reporter

I remember renting a nice Prabal Gurung dress from Rent the Runway around 2011 back when it was still an occasion-based rental service and having such difficulty with it because sizes were always out or iffy and delivery was a gamble. The service has changed so much since then, and definitely for the better.

The Unlimited plan allows users to rent four items at a time, and those items can be swapped out at any time. That means you can keep one item, like a coat, for as many months as you want, while you rotate the other items at any time.

I have so many friends and co-workers who joke that the RTR Unlimited plan is their second closet. The service allows people to experiment with new styles they'd never otherwise buy, and for many, cuts down on clothing waste and unnecessary spending. I haven't bought much other than basics, loungewear, and shoes since I started using RTR Unlimited eight months ago, and most of my coworkers who use the service feel that this is its greatest perk. —Jada Wong, editor

Over the past two years, we've witnessed Rihanna democratize the beauty industry with her now cult-status makeup brand, Fenty Beauty. It offers one of the widest ranges of shades for different skin tones, and features innovative and cleverly designed products and trailblazing campaigns that have impacted the ways in which we purchase, discuss, market, and consume makeup.

Since the brand's inception, we've seen companies shift their advertising and, more notably, expand product offerings to compete with the level of inclusion that Fenty offered from the start. Fenty set the bar high and changed consumers' expectations of what a beauty brand can be and do. —Dominique McIntee, editorial fellow

As much as I hate placing myself at the mercy of a megalithic tech corporation and catching myself mindlessly screen-gazing as a result, Apple won me (and the world at large) over with the iPhone this decade.

Today, we can use these little bricks to keep tabs on our health, stream and download from almost endless music catalogs, stay in contact with far-flung friends via any number of social platforms, navigate by both land and sea with GPS, take and store hundreds of gigabytes worth of photos, audio, and video, and yes, still send a text and make a phone call. Ten years ago, that all would have cost thousands of dollars and resulted in a heaping pile of electronics.

Sure, the iPhone's not the only smartphone, but it was one of the first, and I maintain that it's still one of the best, if only based on usability and streamlining of connectivity. It wasn't and still isn't dauntingly technical to operate as a lot of early smartphones were (and plenty of current ones still are). It's not just for an exclusive cadre of tech whizzes, but the ubiquitous, all-inclusive people's phone, which everyone from your grandmother to your three-year-old nephew can — and probably do — operate. That alone is no small wonder. — Owen Burke, senior reporter