📈 Markets & The Fed

Wall Street closed out the week with a relief rally on Friday, snapping a four session losing streak. The Dow jumped roughly 1% to 52,573, the S&P 500 rose 0.86% to 7,657, and the Nasdaq gained just under 1%. Cooler than feared August inflation data (headline CPI at 0.4%, core at 0.3%) calmed nerves ahead of the Fed’s two day meeting this week.

The big number to watch: the FOMC rate decision lands Wednesday, with markets now pricing in a high probability of a hike. August retail sales data also drops Wednesday, a read investors and retailers alike will be parsing for signs of consumer strength heading into the holidays.

💰 Earnings & Turnarounds

Macy’s posted its fifth straight quarter of comparable sales growth on Thursday, up 2.7% and well ahead of the roughly 1% Wall Street expected. Full year guidance moved higher too, though a meaningful chunk of the earnings beat came from tariff refunds rather than core retail performance. Bloomingdale’s was the standout, up more than 11% in comps.

Chewy also had a strong week, with Autoship subscription sales up more than 9%.

Destination XL laid out a turnaround plan after a soft quarter, and confirmed its planned merger with FullBeauty is officially off.

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Today is on the house

Latest Retail Tech News

Domestic

Target spent Thursday showing off its AI toolkit. The retailer rolled out a suite of new AI-powered shopping features designed to sharpen product discovery and personalization, building on the Review Insights tool it launched in June, which summarizes shopper feedback to help guide purchase decisions, and the AI-supported Photo Search feature it added to its app in August that lets customers snap or upload an image to find matching products. It is the latest sign that Target wants AI to feel less like a gimmick and more like a genuine shortcut to the right product.

Retailers also got a fresh data point on how big this holiday season might get, and e-commerce looks like the engine pulling it forward. A Thursday Deloitte forecast projects total holiday retail sales between 4 percent and 4.8 percent growth year over year, landing between $1.7 trillion and $1.71 trillion for the November through January stretch, with online sales expected to outpace overall growth. If that holds, AI-assisted shopping tools like Target’s new features could end up doing a lot of the heavy lifting this November and December.

Global

Up in Toronto, Mercedes-Benz gave its Holt Renfrew Studio a refresh, debuting the Canadian preview of the 2027 S-Class alongside a new in-store residency from luxury fashion brand Paul & Shark. It’s a small but telling example of automakers leaning on premium retail real estate to reach shoppers who might never set foot in a dealership. Meanwhile, a Salesforce study making the rounds in Canadian retail circles found that nearly four in ten Canadian shoppers used AI tools for product discovery, price comparisons, or deal hunting over the past year, another reminder that AI adoption in shopping journeys isn’t just a U.S. story.

Store Openings and Closings

Domestic

September’s closure wave keeps rolling. Walgreens, Nordstrom, JCPenney, Neiman Marcus, Lucky, and West Marine are all shuttering individual locations this month as the pressures of bankruptcy, restructuring, and plain old underperformance continue to reshape store footprints heading into fall. Neiman Marcus’s flagship in Dallas is among the notable closures tracked this month, a symbolic hit for a brand that has called the city home for generations. As always, the reasons vary store to store, but the throughline is retailers concentrating resources on their strongest locations rather than spreading thin.

Global

The bigger story north of the border belongs to Harry Rosen. The Canadian menswear institution is closing its iconic five-level flagship at 82 Bloor Street West in Toronto on September 12, after nearly 40 years in that space. It isn’t going away, though. The retailer is relocating to a smaller, more modern three-level store just 200 metres away on Cumberland Street, a move that fits the broader pattern of retailers trading size for efficiency rather than disappearing altogether. That shift is showing up in the numbers, too: Canada’s retail vacancy rate is projected to stay elevated near 2.5 percent as the market keeps absorbing the fallout from last year’s Hudson’s Bay closures, which sharply increased mall vacancies across the country.

Retail Stocks

Thursday was a rough session for the broader market, and retail didn’t get much cover. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 316.20 points, or 0.60 percent, to 52,064. The S&P 500 dropped 44.57 points, or 0.58 percent, to 7,591, and the Nasdaq slid 171.62 points, or 0.65 percent, to 26,081. It marked a fourth straight losing day for the S&P, its longest such stretch since mid-March. The culprits were familiar: a hotter-than-expected Producer Price Index reading, with headline PPI up 5.4 percent year over year against expectations of 5.3 percent, oil prices topping $100 a barrel on Middle East supply fears, and Treasury yields climbing to multi-year highs. Traders are now pricing in roughly a 70 percent chance of a Fed rate move at next week’s meeting, up sharply from 62 percent before Thursday’s data.

Against that backdrop, Macy’s was the rare retail bright spot. The department store raised its annual sales and profit outlook after a stronger-than-expected quarter, powered by its upmarket Bloomingdale’s and Bluemercury banners. Macy’s now expects fiscal 2026 sales of $21.68 billion to $21.83 billion, up from its prior view of $21.5 billion to $21.75 billion, alongside a better earnings outlook. Second-quarter sales rose 1.1 percent year over year to $4.87 billion, topping analyst estimates, with Bloomingdale’s comparable sales up an impressive 11.3 percent.

Costco had the opposite day. Shares extended a losing streak into a seventh straight session, down in 10 of the last 11 trading days and hovering around $900, their lowest level since the start of the year. Elsewhere in the warehouse and value space, Dollar General shares rose 0.45 percent to $125.07, Dollar Tree gained 0.24 percent to $118.68, BJ’s Wholesale climbed 1.54 percent to $89.90, Ollie’s Bargain Outlet added 0.35 percent to $72.64, while Target slipped 0.83 percent to $156.22.

Apparel had a tougher time. American Eagle Outfitters shares fell after its earnings report, as strength at its Aerie brand was offset by softness at the flagship banner and continued markdown pressure. The company forecast flat quarterly gross margins and kept its annual comparable sales outlook intact despite beating second-quarter revenue estimates, though inventory costs climbed 14 percent during the quarter. Designer Brands posted second-quarter revenue of $730.6 million with adjusted earnings per share of $0.31, though comparable sales fell 2.4 percent year over year, and the footwear retailer guided to full-year net sales growth of just 0 to 1 percent.

Culturally Relevant Stories

If you caught a whiff of nostalgia at the multiplex Thursday, you weren’t imagining it. Practical Magic 2 hit theaters, and SharkNinja used the moment to launch four new Ninja SLUSHi Twist colorways in custom packaging tied to the film’s now-iconic “Midnight Margaritas” scene. It’s a reminder that retail tie-ins around nostalgic sequels remain a reliable way to get a kitchen gadget trending again, decades after the original film first built its cult following.

Market watchers also noticed a quieter but telling signal Thursday: the CBOE Volatility Index broke above 17 for the first time in 28 straight sessions, closing as high as 18.17 intraday. After nearly a month of unusually calm trading, that shift in sentiment, paired with rising oil prices and sticky inflation data, is worth keeping an eye on as retailers head into the critical holiday planning stretch. A jumpy market rarely makes for a relaxed peak season.

That’s the rundown for Thursday. See you back here tomorrow for another lap around the retail world.

Latest Retail Tech News

Domestic. The story of the day is automation creeping deeper into the store itself. Grocery retailers continued rolling out automated micro-fulfillment centers built directly into existing store footprints, a bet that same-day delivery economics improve when the picking happens feet from the shelf rather than in a separate dark store. It is part of a broader shift industry trackers have been flagging all year: e-commerce logistics investment is chasing speed, and the store is increasingly viewed as the fastest, cheapest node in the network.

That shift is happening even as venture funding for in-store retail tech cools. New data from Tracxn shows in-store retail technology startups raised just $175 million across 14 rounds in the twelve months leading up to April, down sharply from $312 million across 32 rounds the year before. Fewer, larger checks are going to companies that can prove out real operational savings, not concepts still hunting for product market fit. Walgreens offered a good example of what that proof looks like this weekend, opening its ninth robotic micro-fulfillment center, this one in Utah, continuing a rollout the company has used to automate a growing share of its prescription volume.

Global. Across the pond, UK grocer Tesco had a quiet trading day Monday, closing at 474.50 pence on the London Stock Exchange, down about 0.2%, roughly in line with a soft FTSE 100 that slipped 0.08% to 10,822.13 as investors weighed borrowing costs and rising oil prices. Nothing dramatic, but worth watching as UK retailers head into a fall marked by real estate churn (more on that below).

I wanted to share something I’ve been working on. In the upcoming weeks I will be releasing my first e-book entitled Leading Change: A Store Manager’s Playbook for Technology Rollouts. This project has been a labor of love and it aims to give a playbook to operational leaders who are looking to turn technology implementation into sustained operational adoption.

Sharing an except with you below………

Store Openings and Closings

Domestic. September is shaping up to be a heavy month for U.S. store closures, and Monday’s news cycle added detail to several of them. Nordstrom’s Last Chance outlet at Yorktown Center in Lombard, Illinois closed September 1, affecting 101 employees per a WARN filing, with the company redirecting shoppers to other locations and its online business. Walgreens is closing a location in Dumont, New Jersey on September 3 as part of its ongoing footprint reduction. Lucky Supermarket, owned by Save Mart, is shutting its San Francisco store at 1750 Fulton Street on September 11 after years of underperformance, affecting 48 workers who have been offered transfer opportunities.

The bigger structural stories belong to West Marine and Neiman Marcus. West Marine is closing 59 stores across 23 states as part of its Chapter 11 restructuring, citing an oversized footprint, long-term lease obligations, and softer discretionary spending, with Florida, Michigan, California, and Washington seeing the heaviest impact. And Neiman Marcus, under Saks Global, is closing its historic downtown Dallas flagship at 1618 Main Street by September 30, more than a century after it opened, as the company consolidates its Dallas presence around the stronger-performing NorthPark Center location. Store Closure Watch had 89 scheduled September closures on its radar as of late August, and Coresight Research is projecting as many as 8,228 total U.S. retail closures for the year.

Global. The UK is seeing its own wave. Marks & Spencer confirmed it will permanently close 14 in-store cafes in 2026, 13 in England and one in Scotland, as part of a restructuring aimed at freeing up floor space for merchandise. Its Merry Hill shopping centre cafe in Brierley Hill closes September 27 for a renovation and reopens in October as a new-format coffee shop. Discount chain Poundland is closing two branches this autumn after failing to reach new lease terms, and TG Jones, the chain that replaced WHSmith earlier this year, has confirmed 19 September closures as part of a restructuring that puts roughly 150 stores at risk, with closing sales already offering up to 30% off.

Retail Stocks

U.S. markets were closed Monday for Labor Day, so the numbers that matter are from Friday’s close, the last full trading session before the holiday. A hotter than expected August jobs report, 162,000 payrolls added against expectations of roughly 53,000, revived worries about the Federal Reserve’s rate path, and stocks slipped across the board. The Dow fell 271.86 points, or 0.51%, to close at 53,414.25. The S&P 500 dropped 0.38% to 7,718.60, and the Nasdaq Composite slid 0.29% to 26,506.99.

Retail names felt it acutely, particularly in athletic apparel. Lululemon was the session’s biggest mover, plunging 17.4% to $100.61 after cutting its full-year revenue and earnings guidance for the second consecutive quarter and posting its first comparable sales decline since the pandemic, with trading volume roughly ten times its three-month average. The selloff arrives just as former Nike executive Heidi O’Neill prepares to start as Lululemon’s CEO on September 8. Nike itself closed at $38.40, down slightly on the day and roughly 38% for the year, while Dick’s Sporting Goods finished at $139.15, down about 29% year to date after its own weak guidance rattled the athletic category last month. Deckers was the rare bright spot in the group, up 1.55% to $85.81.

Elsewhere, Walmart continues to work through its $2.9 billion tariff refund, the largest disclosed by any retailer so far, which it says it is funneling into price rollbacks, over 11,000 of them in the second quarter alone, even as the company cautioned the windfall will not repeat. Target, TJX, Home Depot, and Lowe’s have all reported smaller but still meaningful refunds tied to the same tariff litigation, a subplot that will keep shaping margin conversations through the rest of the year.

Culturally Relevant Stories

Back-to-school shopping used to wrap up before Labor Day. Not anymore. New survey data from Zeta found that September has now been the single most popular month for planned back-to-school purchases for three years running, capturing 29% of shopper intent this year, ahead of August at 26%, July at 24%, and June at 21%. Families are spreading purchases across more months and more channels, and retailers that make it easy to complete a list piecemeal, rather than in one big trip, are winning the season. Notably, the survey found more than half of back-to-school purchases now involve significant input from the kids themselves, not just the parents holding the wallet.

Nostalgia is also having a moment on the sales floor. Target rolled out an exclusive collection with 90s brand Delia’s, betting that millennial shoppers who grew up flipping through the catalog will bring their own kids along for the ride. And with the NFL season kicking off Tuesday night and the full slate starting Wednesday, expect retailers to lean hard into football-adjacent promotions this week. Walmart has already been positioning itself here, expanding its restaurant delivery partnership with Dunkin’ ahead of kickoff weekend as it looks to own game day snacking the way it owns game day merchandise.

That’s the rundown. See you back here tomorrow.

Good morning,

Retail heads into the Labor Day weekend with a familiar question hanging over the industry: how much momentum does the consumer actually have?

Thursday offered a few clues. Wall Street rallied sharply after Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller suggested he could support holding interest rates steady if inflation continues to cool. Consumer discretionary stocks led the market higher, giving retailers some welcome breathing room after a volatile stretch for interest rates and consumer-facing equities. (Reuters)

But the retail picture itself remains uneven.

Victoria’s Secret delivered strong sales growth and improved its outlook, yet investors still sold the stock because expectations had become so high. Lululemon’s results, released after the market close, created another major question mark around discretionary apparel. Meanwhile, retailers continue moving beyond AI experimentation and toward practical applications in forecasting, supply chain operations and customer experience.

Here is what mattered yesterday.

Latest Retail Tech News

The retail technology conversation continues to become more practical.

For much of the last two years, AI in retail has been dominated by chatbots, shopping assistants and big announcements about generative AI. The next phase appears to be more operational. Recent second-quarter earnings calls from companies including Gap, Dollar General, Ulta Beauty and Kohl’s have highlighted investments in predictive models, agentic systems, internal workflows and supply chain technology. The common theme is increasingly clear: retailers want AI to improve decisions, not simply generate content.

That is particularly relevant for supply chain leaders.

Target has been publicly discussing its use of a digital twin called Proxima to model inventory positioning across its middle-mile supply chain. The company says an early pilot improved on-shelf availability across a group of fresh products, while the longer-term ambition is to connect those models with increasingly automated decision support. (Target Corporation)

This is where the retail technology stack starts to become much more interesting.

AI can forecast demand. Digital twins can model operational scenarios. RFID can provide more accurate information about physical inventory. Automation can then help execute the next action.

These technologies are increasingly connected rather than operating as isolated projects.

That may ultimately be one of the most important retail technology stories of this decade. The winning retailers will not necessarily be the ones using the most AI. They will be the ones that connect technology to better inventory availability, faster fulfillment and better decisions on the sales floor.

There was also a reminder this week that technology adoption brings new questions around privacy and trust. Ulta Beauty has faced scrutiny over its use of automated license plate reader technology at a small number of store parking lots as part of theft prevention efforts. The debate reflects a broader tension retailers will increasingly face as AI-powered security technology becomes more sophisticated.

Technology can make stores safer and more efficient.

But retailers will also need to explain how customer data is being collected, stored and used.

Store Openings and Closings

The physical retail story remains highly local and highly category-specific.

Thursday’s store activity included a number of new openings across the United States, ranging from specialty retail to restaurants and entertainment concepts. Retail tracking data showed new and upcoming locations for brands including Primark, Wayfair Outlet and Half Price Books, while individual markets continued to see new independent and specialty concepts enter shopping centers and urban neighborhoods.

The important takeaway is that the store story is not simply about openings versus closures anymore.

Retailers are becoming much more selective about where stores fit into the larger business.

A new store may support traditional sales, but it can also serve as a fulfillment node, a customer acquisition tool or a physical expression of a brand’s identity. That is why some retailers continue aggressively expanding while others are shrinking their footprints.

The value sector remains especially interesting.

A recent tally of announced 2026 openings across major value chains pointed to substantial continued store growth, even as retailers acknowledge that many of their core customers remain financially constrained.

That contradiction is worth watching.

Retailers are expanding to serve consumers who are under financial pressure. The opportunity is real because value matters more in a constrained environment, but the long-term question is whether consumer demand can support the amount of square footage being added.

Internationally, the physical retail opportunity continues to be tied closely to location, tourism and brand experience. Major cities remain attractive for flagship stores and experiential concepts, while local retailers are increasingly using smaller, more flexible formats to test demand.

The physical store is not disappearing.

It is simply being asked to do more.

Retail Stocks

Thursday was a strong day for the broader market.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 1.18%, the S&P 500 rose 1.06% and the Nasdaq Composite climbed 1.40%. Consumer discretionary stocks were among the strongest sectors as investors responded positively to comments from Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller that reduced fears of an immediate additional rate hike.

For retailers, lower rate anxiety matters.

Interest rates influence everything from consumer credit and housing activity to corporate investment and inventory financing. Even a small change in expectations can move retail stocks, particularly companies exposed to discretionary spending.

Among the companies outside the core Retail Index watchlist, Victoria’s Secret offered one of Thursday’s most interesting earnings stories. The company reported strong second-quarter sales growth, with bras and its Pink business helping drive performance. Comparable sales also increased, and the company raised its outlook. But the market wanted more. Shares fell sharply after the report as investors focused on expectations that had risen significantly following the stock’s strong run.

That reaction says something important about the current market.

Good results are not always enough.

Retailers are being judged against increasingly demanding expectations. A company can beat internal guidance and still see its stock decline if investors were positioned for something stronger.

Lululemon became another major story after Thursday’s close. Early Friday market coverage showed the company facing a significant stock decline following a weaker revenue outlook, adding pressure to one of retail’s most closely watched premium apparel brands.

Investors are looking for evidence that the consumer is still spending, but they are also looking for proof that retailers can protect margins while doing it.

The key things to watch are back-to-school performance, promotional activity, inventory levels and management commentary about the fourth quarter.

And then there is the macroeconomic backdrop.

Markets are now turning their attention to the August employment report and upcoming inflation data. Those reports will help shape expectations for the Federal Reserve’s next meeting.

Retailers may be reporting their own results, but interest rates are still writing part of the story.

Global Retail and the Macro Picture

Globally, Thursday’s market rally was driven largely by the bond market.

Treasury yields declined after Waller’s comments, while investors reassessed the likelihood of another near-term rate increase. Global equities responded positively, although energy prices and geopolitical concerns remain an important source of uncertainty.

Oil remains particularly important for retail.

Higher energy prices eventually work their way through transportation, logistics and household budgets. Retailers may not feel that impact immediately, but sustained increases can pressure freight costs and leave consumers with less money for discretionary purchases.

The Federal Reserve’s latest Beige Book also reinforced the complicated nature of the current economy. Economic activity has continued to expand modestly, but businesses are reporting consumer sensitivity to prices and difficulty passing additional costs through to customers. (Reuters)

That may be the single most important sentence for retail executives right now.

Consumers are still buying.

But they are still watching prices.

Retailers are still facing costs.

But they cannot always pass those costs along.

That puts an even greater premium on operational efficiency.

The Cultural Retail Story

The most interesting cultural shift in retail right now is the growing importance of relevance.

Product still matters. Price still matters. Convenience definitely matters.

But attention has become one of retail’s most valuable currencies.

Retailers are increasingly competing with social platforms, entertainment companies and creators for a place in the customer’s daily life. That is changing everything from product launches to store design.

A good example is the continued evolution of beauty.

Ulta’s recent results and technology investments show a category that sits at the intersection of physical retail, digital discovery and cultural influence. Beauty shoppers may discover a product through a creator, research it online and then visit a physical store to try it.

The transaction may happen in one channel, but the relationship is happening everywhere. Apparel is facing a similar challenge.

Lululemon’s latest reaction shows how quickly consumer sentiment can shift in a category where brand heat and cultural relevance are difficult to maintain. That is why retailers are spending more time thinking about community, partnerships and experience.

The store is becoming a media channel.

The product launch is becoming a content event.

And the supply chain has to keep up with whatever happens next.

Today to Watch

The biggest event today is the U.S. employment report for August.

Markets are watching closely because labor market conditions will help shape expectations for the Federal Reserve’s September meeting. Economists have been expecting relatively modest job growth, making the report particularly important after recent uncertainty around inflation and interest rates.

For retailers, the report matters beyond Wall Street.

A weaker labor market could eventually affect consumer confidence and discretionary spending.

A stronger report could keep pressure on the Federal Reserve to remain focused on inflation.

Either way, retail leaders will be watching what happens to interest rate expectations.

Lululemon will also remain a major market story today following its earnings reaction, while investors continue to digest the broader implications of Victoria’s Secret’s results.

The through-line across today’s news is optionality. Retailers that are diversifying where and how they sell, from Sephora’s new TikTok storefront to HEMA’s continued brick-and-mortar expansion in Belgium, are moving with confidence. Retailers still leaning on a single channel or a single cultural moment from decades past are the ones running out of room. Keep that lens in mind as you read through the rest of today’s briefing.

Latest Retail Tech News

Domestic: Sephora is taking its product drops to TikTok Shop. The beauty retailer announced a U.S. pilot starting September 19 called the “Sephora Drop Shop,” featuring exclusive monthly product launches built around creator content and a TikTok Live unveiling. Selected items will roll out to Sephora’s other channels only after the exclusive window closes, a clear signal that social commerce platforms are graduating from marketing tool to full distribution channel for beauty. Meanwhile, Kohl’s restructured its executive ranks, creating a new chief customer officer role held by Arianne Parisi that folds media, loyalty, and digital commerce under one leader. Chief Marketing Officer Christie Raymond is departing as part of the shift. CEO Michael Bender told analysts on the company’s Q2 earnings call that a “seamless, inspiring experience, whether in store or online” remains central to Kohl’s turnaround strategy, underscoring how digital and physical are converging into a single executive mandate rather than separate fiefdoms.

Global: European retailers kept pushing further into digital storefronts. Belgium’s Smyths Toys launched a dedicated online store, extending the UK-founded chain’s e-commerce push across the continent. It is a small move on its own, but part of a broader pattern of European specialty retailers building out direct digital channels rather than leaning solely on marketplaces. Taken together with Sephora’s TikTok pilot, the throughline is that retailers on both sides of the Atlantic are unbundling the checkout experience from a single, controlled destination, whether that destination is their own website or their own four walls.

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Labor Day weekend is barely in the rearview mirror and the industry already served up a legal bombshell out of Washington, a rocky public debut for one of fast fashion’s biggest names, and a new AI assistant trying to earn its keep on the sales floor. Here is everything that moved retail yesterday, split out by domestic and global developments.

Latest Retail Tech News

Domestic: The FTC and 22 state attorneys general dropped a major lawsuit against Amazon yesterday, accusing the company of systematically overcharging more than 1.2 million advertisers by upward of $20 billion since 2019 through hidden surcharges baked into its ad auction system. Amazon is pushing back hard, arguing advertisers simply adjusted their bidding behavior as the marketplace evolved and that its relevancy based auction design actually saved advertisers an estimated $8 billion between 2021 and 2025. This suit lands on top of an already looming separate antitrust trial over Amazon’s alleged monopolization of online retail markets, which is slated to begin early next year, so the regulatory cloud hanging over Seattle is not clearing up anytime soon. It is also a reminder that the algorithms retailers and marketplaces build to run auctions, personalize offers, and set prices are increasingly drawing courtroom scrutiny, not just headlines about efficiency gains.

On a lighter note, Best Buy rolled out Ask Blue, a new AI shopping assistant built to lean into the retailer’s long standing identity as the place shoppers go for actual product expertise rather than just a checkout line. The tool walks customers through purchase decisions and can hand them off to a live associate the moment things get complicated, keeping the human in the loop rather than trying to replace them. It is one piece of a broader in store strategy that includes expanding dedicated Meta Labs sections, now more than halfway toward a planned rollout of 50 locations, where specially trained employees help shoppers navigate AI glasses and virtual reality gear. Early customer response has reportedly exceeded expectations, and the company is already eyeing whether the vendor partnership concept can expand beyond Meta.

Global: All eyes were on Hong Kong, where Shein finally rang the bell on its long delayed public listing. After getting boxed out of New York and then London amid supply chain, data handling, and labor practice scrutiny, the fast fashion giant priced its IPO at HK$48.56 a share, sold 280 million shares, raised roughly $1.7 billion, and landed a valuation near $26.5 billion, a steep comedown from the nearly $100 billion private valuation it commanded back in 2022. Shares slid as much as 10% in early trading before clawing back to close broadly flat. Shein says roughly 40% of the proceeds will go toward improving its technology stack, another 40% toward brand building and global expansion, and the remainder toward corporate responsibility initiatives. The company reported $41.8 billion in net revenue for 2025, up from $38.7 billion the year prior, though it swung to a net loss in the first quarter of this year.

Store Openings and Closings

Domestic: Not a lot of new footprint announcements broke yesterday, but the housing adjacent side of retail took a real hit. Construction spending fell in July to its lowest level since October 2023, and that ripple effect hit home improvement retailers directly, with Home Depot and Lowe’s shares both sliding more than 1.5% as the iShares US Home Construction ETF logged its fourth negative session in the last five. Mortgage rates also jumped to their highest level in more than a year after renewed hostilities in the Middle East pushed bond yields higher, adding another headwind for anyone hoping for a fall pickup in home related spending.

Global: North of the border, expansion was very much the theme. Loblaw is accelerating a $1.2 billion capital investment through the rest of 2026 to add more No Frills and Maxi discount banners as Canadian shoppers keep trading down toward value amid persistent price sensitivity. Jewelry chain Michael Hill is planning further Canadian store growth after a record fiscal year that saw 7.3% revenue growth and a 22% jump in online sales, and the company now calls Canada its fastest growing and most promising market. Build-A-Bear is refocusing its Canadian store network around customization and experiential retail after a softer summer, leaning into its collector audience. Williams-Sonoma flagged Canada as a leading growth market as Pottery Barn, West Elm and its namesake banner all gain share there through both digital expansion and trade business development. Meanwhile Couche-Tard reported higher first quarter earnings even as Canadian convenience merchandise sales stayed flat, with fuel volumes and margins doing the heavy lifting. Overall, Canadian retailers appear to be entering the 2026 holiday season with real spending momentum, though Salesforce data suggests price sensitivity, promotions, and shipping costs will still shape how far that momentum stretches.

Retail Stocks

Domestic: It was a rough opening to September on Wall Street. Stocks fell broadly as inflation worries and elevated oil prices pushed bond yields higher, with the S&P 500 logging 12 new 52-week lows against just seven new highs on the session. Nike was among the more notable laggards, touching $38.07 and its lowest level in more than two decades. Walmart shares traded in a range of $104.66 to $106.64 during the session and settled around $105.82, still well off its 52-week high near $135 following a rocky stretch after its most recent quarterly results. Target and Costco were comparatively quieter, trading roughly in line with the broader consumer staples complex as investors weighed the same macro pressures. Retail names broadly took a backseat to bigger picture worries yesterday, with traders bracing for a Federal Reserve decision on September 16 that futures markets now peg at roughly 60% odds of a rate hike, a shift in sentiment that followed Fed Chair Kevin Warsh’s hawkish tone at last week’s Jackson Hole address. The 10 year Treasury yield pushed toward 4.78%, its highest level since early 2025, which tends to weigh especially hard on rate sensitive retail and housing related names.

Global: Beyond Shein’s rocky debut in Hong Kong, European markets had their own inflation headache to contend with. Eurozone inflation climbed to 3.3% in August from 2.9% in July, driven largely by a sharp jump in energy costs, cementing market expectations that the European Central Bank will raise rates by a quarter point at its September meeting. That combination of a wobbly fast fashion listing and hotter than expected inflation gave international retail investors plenty to digest alongside their domestic counterparts.

Culturally Relevant Stories

Beauty had a moment yesterday as Huda Beauty teamed up with Cardi B to launch a new Ultra Snatched makeup collection, the latest example of retailers and beauty brands leaning on celebrity partnerships to cut through an increasingly crowded market. On the consumer psychology side, NerdWallet Canada published new research on so called doomspending, describing it as buying things people do not need because the future feels uncertain or saving money seems pointless, and finding that the behavior spans every generation rather than being a uniquely younger shopper phenomenon. That is a data point worth watching as retailers plan holiday messaging against a backdrop of persistent price sensitivity on both sides of the border. Also worth a mention: Toronto based fashion brand Arvenoir announced its entry into Sri Lanka, a small but telling sign that Canadian retail brands are increasingly looking abroad for their next chapter of growth even as domestic consumers stay cautious with their wallets.

That is the rundown. See you back here tomorrow with whatever retail throws at us next.

Latest Retail Tech News

Domestic: The bigger technology story of the past several days wasn’t a flashy product launch, it was Best Buy quietly finishing the rollout of more than 50 Meta Labs shop-in-shops and completing its OpenAI commerce integration, which lets shoppers browse and buy Best Buy products directly inside ChatGPT. The retailer also debuted AskBlue, a conversational AI shopping and support assistant, as part of a quarter where computing sales led comparable growth for the tenth straight period. It’s a reminder that the “AI shopping assistant” trend isn’t theoretical anymore, it’s showing up in actual same-store sales numbers.

Global: Across the pond, Morrisons kept pushing its self-checkout overhaul, expanding an AI-powered checkout partnership with loss-prevention firm Everseen to roughly 200 stores. The chain says the tech lets it keep lines moving while freeing up staff for service, a familiar refrain as UK grocers race to modernize front-end operations without losing the human touch entirely. It’s part of a broader wave of UK retail tech news that also included Asda piloting Auror crime-reporting and intelligence software across ten weeks of London stores, and BNPL provider Klarna going live with J.P. Morgan Payments to open its full suite to U.S. merchants.

Zoom out a bit and the underlying tension in retail AI is becoming clearer. Recent survey data suggests shoppers are increasingly comfortable letting AI tools handle product discovery and recommendations, but they still want a human, or at least a human-feeling checkpoint, before money actually changes hands. That’s part of why OpenAI shut down its Instant Checkout feature earlier this year and pivoted back toward discovery and merchant routing instead of in-chat purchasing. Retailers building their own AI shopping tools are watching that shift closely.

Store Openings and Closings

Domestic: Columbus, Ohio had a busy August on the brick-and-mortar front. Herman Miller opened its first Columbus-area store and showroom at Easton, the 31st location for a brand whose Aeron chair sits in MoMA’s permanent collection. Nearby, the hometown computer retailer Micro Center capped a months-long renovation of its Bethel Road flagship with a grand reopening on August 22 that reportedly drew a line wrapping around the building, complete with an expanded build-your-own-PC department and a bigger 3D printing section. It’s a small but telling sign that even in an AI-saturated retail moment, people still want to walk into a store and touch the hardware.

Global: In Canada, expansion is still very much the story for value and off-price players. Athletic footwear brand DUER is opening a new store at CF Polo Park in Winnipeg as it plots further growth across Canada and the U.S. over the next two years, while Jersey Mike’s continues its rapid Canadian buildout with an eye toward roughly 300 locations nationwide. On the flip side, Best Buy Canada flagged a revenue pullback tied to its Express store format maturing faster than expected, prompting a shift toward productivity over pure footprint growth. RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust, which owns a large chunk of Canadian retail real estate, reported near-full leasing across its properties, driven by demand from grocers, pharmacies, fitness operators, and value retailers like Dollarama and TJX, a sign that landlords are still finding plenty of tenants for the space department stores keep vacating.

Retail Stocks

Wall Street closed out last week on a soft note. The S&P 500 slipped 0.25% Friday to 7,711.76, the Nasdaq Composite fell 0.52% to 26,402.42, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average was essentially flat, down just 9.45 points to 53,559.99. All three indexes still finished the week in positive territory after Fed Chair Kevin Warsh’s Jackson Hole remarks were read as mildly hawkish on inflation.

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Earnings season hit its final stretch this week, and it delivered some of the sharpest single-day moves of the year. Big-box retailers kept posting healthy numbers even as shoppers stayed price-focused, Best Buy proved tech upgrades still sell, and Dick’s Sporting Goods had a session it will not want to remember. Here is the recap.

EARNINGS SHOCK

Dick’s Sporting Goods Suffers Its Worst Trading Day Ever

Dick’s shares plunged more than 30% on Tuesday, the steepest single-day drop in the company’s history, after second quarter revenue and earnings missed Wall Street targets and management slashed full year guidance. The company’s core Dick’s banner actually grew comparable sales nearly 5%, but that strength was overwhelmed by its Foot Locker business, which the retailer bought for roughly 2.4 billion dollars last year. Foot Locker posted a same-store sales decline and an operating loss for the quarter.

Executives pointed to an unusually promotional athletic footwear and apparel market, thinner product launches, and cautious consumers as the culprits, and said Dick’s had to cut prices to stay competitive. Wall Street responded by hacking price targets across the board, though several analysts, including CNBC’s Jim Cramer, argued the sell-off was overdone given Dick’s remains the last national sporting goods chain with real scale.

• Stock closed down roughly 30.7% to about $124, its worst session on record

• Foot Locker comparable sales fell 3.6% with an operating loss for the quarter

• Full year adjusted EPS guidance cut, with multiple banks trimming price targets by 20 to 30%

EARNINGS BEAT, STOCK SLIPS

Best Buy Raises Its Outlook, but Investors Aren’t Buying It

Best Buy beat across the board on Thursday: revenue of 9.8 billion dollars topped estimates, comparable sales climbed 4.1% against a forecast of roughly 1.6%, and adjusted earnings of 1.47 dollars per share cleared expectations. The company raised its full year revenue guidance to a range of 42.3 to 42.8 billion dollars and lifted its adjusted EPS outlook to 6.70 to 6.90 dollars, crediting an AI-driven hardware upgrade cycle pulling shoppers toward new computers and phones.

Shares still fell around 5% on the day. Part of the caution stems from a 34 million dollar tariff-refund benefit that padded the quarter, along with warnings that computer sales growth is likely to cool later in the year. Outgoing categories like large appliances remain soft, while newer bets such as AI glasses and 3D printers are picking up some of the slack. CEO transition news added to the backdrop, with Jason Bonfig set to take over as incoming CEO.

• Comparable sales +4.1%, more than double the Street’s 1.6% estimate

• Full year comp sales guidance raised to 1.9%–3.0% from a prior range of -1% to +1%

• Shares fell roughly 5% despite the beat, on durability concerns tied to tariff refunds

BIG BOX WRAP-UP

Walmart, Target and Home Depot Show a Resilient but Price-Sensitive Shopper

The week capped a heavy stretch of big-box earnings. Walmart, Target and Home Depot all reported sales gains, describing a consumer still willing to spend but hunting for the right price on the right product. Target’s turnaround under new CEO Michael Fiddelke continued to draw attention, with traffic and comparable sales both improving after a rough stretch, while Walmart’s scale and grocery mix kept it the steadiest performer of the group despite a stock that has cooled off this year.

Off-price chains had a strong showing too. TJX and Ross Stores both reported solid results earlier in the week, and Burlington capped the group Thursday with adjusted earnings that topped consensus and raised full year guidance, even though shares dipped on cautious third quarter commentary. Across the broader retail and restaurant index, roughly 73% of companies that have reported second quarter results have beaten earnings estimates, though the market’s reaction this week showed investors are parsing the details closely rather than rewarding headline beats alone.

• Target Q1 comps of +5.6% with traffic +4.4%, momentum that carried into this week’s report

• Burlington Q2 adjusted EPS of $2.37 beat consensus of $2.18, but shares fell on soft Q3 guidance

• 73% of the 165 retail and restaurant companies reporting Q2 results have beaten earnings estimates so far

LEADERSHIP SHAKE-UP

Gap Taps a New CEO to Turn Around Old Navy

Gap Inc. shares jumped this week after the company named a new chief executive for Old Navy, its largest and most closely watched banner. The move signals renewed urgency to fix a brand that has struggled to keep pace with off-price and fast-fashion competitors even as Gap’s namesake brand has shown signs of a genuine comeback over the past two years.

TRADE & TARIFFS

Cross-Border Retailers Keep Adjusting to the Tariff Fight

North of the border, Canada’s roughly 27.6 billion dollar counter-tariff package targeting hundreds of U.S.-origin goods continues to reshape pricing, sourcing and shelf labeling decisions for Canadian retailers, with a Buy Canadian movement pushing more shoppers toward domestic brands. Loblaw reversed course on dropping country-of-origin labeling from produce after backlash, a reminder that tariff politics are increasingly playing out on the shelf edge, not just in boardrooms.

Latest Retail Tech News

Domestic. The supply chain and delivery side of retail tech kept moving fast yesterday. Instacart and Petsense by Tractor Supply launched a same-day delivery partnership across U.S. stores, extending Instacart’s grocery-and-more playbook deeper into pet care, a category that has proven resilient even as discretionary spending wobbles. Meanwhile, autonomous trucking firm Gatik landed $200 million in fresh funding, underscoring how much appetite remains for automation in grocery and CPG supply chains even as venture dollars have gotten choosier elsewhere. On the AI commerce side, eComID raised $17 million as it expands internationally and rolls out an AI-powered “Shopping Passport,” part of a broader identity and personalization push retailers are watching closely. Retail Technology Innovation Hub also launched its inaugural Retail Technology Hot 100 List this week, with JD Sports’ Dan McGrath noting that AI, automation, robotics, computer vision and inventory intelligence “are no longer future technologies. They’re becoming the foundations of modern retail.”

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Good morning. Markets shrugged off Monday with a mixed close, Shein finally priced its long-delayed IPO, and UK retail tech took a step backward in Sheffield. Here’s everything retail leaders need heading into Tuesday.

Latest Retail Tech News

Domestic

Retailers are heading into the holidays with a confidence gap. A new Narvar survey found that 65% of consumers plan to lean on AI for at least part of their holiday shopping this year, from product discovery to gift picks, but only 8% of retailers describe themselves as very confident in their ability to actually deliver a good AI-powered shopping experience. That gap between shopper appetite and merchant readiness is shaping up to be one of the defining storylines of this holiday season, and it puts pressure on retail IT and merchandising teams to close the confidence deficit before Black Friday.

Global

Not every automation bet is paying off on schedule. In the UK, Starship Technologies has pulled its autonomous delivery robots out of Sheffield just five months after launching there with Uber Eats. The company says the pause is a routine end to a commercial pilot rather than a retreat, and it will decide on any future deployment after reviewing the results. Still, the robots had been dogged by vandalism, including flags snapped off and traffic cones placed behind units to block them, and walking charity Living Streets has separately pushed Starship’s grocery delivery partner Co-op to address concerns about the robots’ impact on older and disabled pedestrians. With more than nine million autonomous deliveries completed across 270-plus locations globally, Starship’s Sheffield stumble is a reminder that last-mile robotics still has to win over the sidewalk before it wins over the P&L.

Store Openings and Closings

Domestic

Coresight’s latest weekly tracker shows the push and pull that defines 2026 retail real estate. Aldi is adding to its list of closures even as it barrels toward one of the largest single-year expansions in its history, more than 225 new U.S. stores this year as part of a five-year, $9 billion growth plan that aims to bring the chain to nearly 2,800 locations by year’s end. On the closure side, Walgreens continues working through its three-year plan to shutter roughly 1,200 stores, while MUJI is pressing ahead with new U.S. openings even as it trims underperforming locations in China. The net effect nationally: analysts still expect somewhere close to 7,900 U.S. store closures this year, even as expansion-minded value retailers keep opening at a healthy clip.

Global

Across the UK, Poundland’s rocky ownership saga picked up an accounting wrinkle. The discounter disclosed that it overstated revenue by roughly £61 million in the fiscal year before Gordon Brothers bought it for a nominal £1, though the company says the error also inflated cost of sales by the same amount and had no impact on overall profit. The filing lands just as Gordon Brothers is reportedly lining up advisers for a possible sale of the chain, which now runs about 600 UK stores after closing roughly a fifth of its estate and cutting more than 2,000 jobs during last year’s restructuring. Elsewhere on the UK high street, Uniqlo is pressing the accelerator with new store openings, and Morrisons is doubling down on physical retail with a fresh price commitment across 500 everyday products, a signal that grocery players still see the store as their best growth lever even as digital investment continues elsewhere.

Retail Stocks

Retail names traded in a choppy tape on Monday as Wall Street awaited Nvidia’s earnings and Fed Chair Kevin Warsh’s Friday remarks at Jackson Hole. The S&P 500 slipped 0.28% to 7,652.86, the Nasdaq Composite fell 0.76% to 25,980.19, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average bucked the trend to close up 0.26% at 53,417.16, helped along by a pullback in Treasury yields even as chip stocks weighed on the broader tape.

Within retail, Walmart and Target both notched gains of roughly 2.7% on the session, a bright spot for two of the sector’s most closely watched bellwethers even as their year-to-date paths have diverged sharply, with Target still working to claw back ground it lost to Walmart over the past several years. Home improvement names stayed in focus after last week’s earnings from Home Depot and Lowe’s, with Home Depot holding relatively steady on a beat-and-reaffirm quarter that included a $685 million tariff refund boosting margins, while Lowe’s trimmed its outlook as DIY spending remains pressured by elevated mortgage rates. Off-price continued to be a pocket of strength following Ross Stores’ better-than-expected results last week, a sharp contrast with TJX, which flagged merchandising missteps behind a rare miss in its U.S. business. Athletic and apparel names remain under pressure broadly, with Nike and Lululemon both still trading well off their highs as investors wait to see whether incoming leadership changes at both companies can jump-start a turnaround.

Culturally Relevant Stories

Domestic

Beauty keeps proving itself recession-resistant. A first-half report from Circana found prestige beauty sales up 7% year over year to $17.1 billion, with mass beauty sales also up 7% to $39.2 billion, driven heavily by fragrance. Prestige fragrance sales rose 6% as shoppers traded up into higher-concentration eau de parfum and perfume formats, while mass fragrance sales jumped 15% on higher pricing and demand. Circana’s Larissa Jensen framed it as consumers “selectively investing in products that deliver the strongest emotional and functional value,” a trend that is reshaping how mass retailers like Target position beauty now that its shop-in-shop partnership with Ulta has fully wound down.

Global

Shein finally has an IPO price. The Chinese-founded fast-fashion giant is offering roughly 280 million shares on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange at HK$47.60 to HK$49.50 apiece, aiming to raise up to $1.77 billion and valuing the company near $27 billion when shares begin trading September 1. That is a steep comedown from Shein’s roughly $100 billion peak valuation in 2022, reflecting a slowdown in revenue growth, a $99 million first-quarter loss, and the pressure of losing the U.S. de minimis import exemption that once underpinned its low-price model. Cornerstone investors including Tencent, Tiger Global, and General Atlantic have committed a combined $383 million, and Shein says roughly 80% of IPO proceeds will go toward technology upgrades and expanding its international brand footprint, a notable pivot for a company built almost entirely on ultra-low prices and ultra-fast turnaround. It caps years of false starts in New York and London and stands as Hong Kong’s largest new listing so far this year.

That’s the rundown for Tuesday. Have a great start to your week.

Daily Retail Intelligence | Thursday, August 20, 2026

Retail earnings week is delivering exactly what investors wanted: a clearer picture of how consumers are behaving.

Wednesday brought three very different stories. Target is showing signs of a genuine turnaround, Lowe’s is seeing resilient repair demand but continued weakness in larger DIY projects, and TJX is still growing while showing some cracks at TJ Maxx and Marshalls. The market, meanwhile, got a little relief from the Treasury, but the Federal Reserve minutes reminded investors that inflation is still very much part of the conversation.

The big question this morning is whether Walmart and Ross Stores reinforce the value story or give us another warning that consumers are becoming more selective.

Latest Retail Tech News

One of the most interesting technology developments from Wednesday came from Target. Alongside its stronger quarter, the retailer said it plans to invest more heavily in technology as part of its turnaround, with a focus on simplifying work, improving customer connections and strengthening inventory capabilities. Target has also made AI a major part of its strategy, including its first Chief AI Officer and partnerships designed to bring conversational shopping into the customer journey. (Target Corporation)

That is important because Target is increasingly treating technology as an operating tool rather than a separate innovation initiative. The retailer’s digital comparable sales rose 8.7% in the quarter, while same-day delivery continued to grow rapidly. The bigger opportunity is connecting those digital capabilities to stores, inventory and merchandising.

RFID is moving in the same direction. Keonn and Impinj announced an upgraded version of the AdvanTrack-600 platform that combines overhead RFID with Gen2X support to improve inventory accuracy and coverage in stores. (RFID JOURNAL) The interesting part is not simply better RFID hardware. It is the possibility of creating a more continuous view of the physical store that can feed automation and AI.

That connection is becoming increasingly important. AI can recommend what should happen, but it needs accurate information about what is actually happening. RFID can provide that physical-world signal. Computer vision, mobile devices and other store technologies can add more context. The end game is a store that can identify an inventory problem, understand the likely cause and help an associate or automated system act on it.

Another noteworthy development came from Instacart, which announced a partnership with Foot Locker, Kids Foot Locker and Champs Sports that brings more than 1,000 locations onto the Instacart Marketplace, with delivery available in as little as an hour. (PR Newswire) It is another sign that same-day delivery is expanding beyond grocery into mainstream retail categories.

Domestic Retail

Target was the clear winner among Wednesday’s major retail earnings reports. The company reported second-quarter sales of $26.54 billion, up 5.3%, while comparable sales increased 3.8% and digital comparable sales grew 8.7%. Target also raised its full-year sales outlook. (Reuters)

The turnaround is becoming harder to dismiss. Traffic improved, merchandise has been refreshed, pricing has become more competitive and the company is seeing stronger performance in categories including food, beauty and general merchandise. There is one important footnote: a $994 million tariff refund materially boosted the quarter’s profit, so the earnings growth is not entirely operational. (AP News)

Lowe’s delivered a more mixed report. Second-quarter revenue reached $25.96 billion, but sales missed expectations and comparable sales increased only 0.2%. The company maintained profitability thanks in part to resilient repair and maintenance demand, but lowered its full-year outlook to the bottom end of its previous range. Management continues to see consumers holding back on larger discretionary projects. (Reuters)

Then there is TJX. The off-price retailer delivered 5% sales growth and 4% comparable-sales growth, but the stock fell sharply after the company flagged a slowdown at TJ Maxx and Marshalls. HomeGoods was the standout, with home products performing better than apparel. (Reuters)

Put those three reports together and the consumer picture gets more interesting. Target suggests consumers will spend when merchandise, price and experience are right. Lowe’s suggests larger purchases remain harder to justify. TJX suggests value remains powerful, but even value retail is not immune to category differences.

Global Retail

The global story is following a similar pattern. Retailers are continuing to invest in technology, but the focus is increasingly practical. AI shopping, demand forecasting, RFID, electronic shelf labels and automation are being deployed to make stores and supply chains more responsive.

One of the most relevant global trends is the continued expansion of AI into commerce. Retailers are experimenting with conversational shopping and agentic tools that can move customers from discovery to purchase without requiring them to navigate a traditional website.

That creates a new competitive question for retailers: if an AI agent becomes the shopper’s interface, who owns the customer relationship?

The answer may depend on how well retailers maintain their product data, inventory accuracy, loyalty programs and fulfillment capabilities. The better those systems work together, the easier it becomes for an AI agent to recommend the retailer and successfully complete the transaction.

Store Openings and Closings

The physical retail footprint continues to split between expansion and rationalization. TJX is accelerating its store-opening plans as its off-price businesses continue to perform, a particularly notable development given the broader caution around discretionary spending. (Modern Retail)

At the other end of the spectrum, West Marine has expanded its list of store closures to 91 locations as it works through a significant restructuring of its physical footprint. (Powerboat News)

That contrast says a lot about where physical retail is heading. Store growth is not disappearing. It is becoming more selective. Retailers with a strong value proposition and attractive unit economics are still opening stores. Retailers with weaker locations are closing them.

The important metric is increasingly store productivity, not store count.

Retail Stocks and Markets

Wednesday was a modestly positive day for U.S. equities. The S&P 500 gained 0.21%, the Dow added 0.22% and the Nasdaq rose 0.16%. The market got some relief after the Treasury announced it would increase purchases of longer-term government debt, helping push long-term Treasury yields lower. (The Wall Street Journal)

Retail stocks were more mixed. Target surged roughly 4.3% following its earnings report, while Amazon gained 2.46%. Walmart declined 0.78%, and TJX fell 4.21% despite beating expectations. Lowe’s gained 2.02%. (MarketWatch)

For the broader Retail Index watchlist of the message from Wednesday is pretty clear: investors are rewarding evidence of traffic and growth, but they are scrutinizing the quality and durability of that growth.

The bigger market story is rates. Treasury yields have been moving sharply as investors debate inflation, Fed policy and government borrowing. That matters for retail because higher long-term rates affect mortgages, housing activity, financing costs and eventually discretionary spending.

The Fed’s July meeting minutes added another wrinkle. Several policymakers favored a rate increase at the July meeting, while many others indicated that further tightening could be necessary if inflation remains elevated. The Fed ultimately held rates at 3.50% to 3.75%, with three members dissenting in favor of a hike. (Reuters)

For retailers, that is a meaningful backdrop. Softer recent inflation data has helped consumers, but the Fed is clearly not ready to declare victory.

Culturally Relevant Retail

Back-to-school remains the dominant retail cultural story as families move into the final stretch of the season. The interesting part is that shoppers are not necessarily spending less. They are shopping differently.

Consumers are starting earlier, comparing prices and waiting for promotions. Recent research suggests the definition of value has broadened beyond simply getting the lowest price. Quality, convenience, trust and product relevance increasingly matter alongside price. (Business Insider)

That dynamic is visible in Target’s quarter. The retailer said 95% of its back-to-school assortment was priced at or below last year’s levels, while refreshed merchandise and better store execution helped bring customers back. (Business Insider)

It is a useful reminder that retail value is not always synonymous with discounting. Consumers may pay more for something if they believe the product, convenience or experience justifies it.

The Retail Earnings Calendar

Today is the other major retail earnings day of the week. Walmart reports before the market opens, followed by Ross Stores after the close. Walmart is particularly important because its scale and exposure to grocery, general merchandise, ecommerce and advertising make it one of the best broad reads on the U.S. consumer. Ross provides another important test of the off-price value proposition. (The Wall Street Journal)

Next week brings another wave of retail reports, including Abercrombie & Fitch, Dollar General, Burlington, Gap, Ulta Beauty and Best Buy. Those reports will provide additional reads on apparel, value, beauty and electronics.

Today to Watch

Walmart is the headline this morning. The market will be looking closely at U.S. comparable sales, grocery versus general merchandise, ecommerce growth, Walmart Connect and commentary around consumers with lower incomes.

The first read is already getting attention in premarket trading. Walmart shares fell after the company reported weaker-than-expected U.S. comparable sales, while still delivering strong overall revenue and ecommerce growth. Reuters reported that consumers were pulling back on discretionary purchases as higher gas prices pressured household budgets. (Reuters)

Weekly jobless claims and the Philadelphia Fed manufacturing index are also due today, providing another look at labor-market and economic momentum. (Kiplinger)

The Retail Index Take

The retail earnings story is starting to come into focus.

Target is winning shoppers back.

Lowe’s is finding resilience in repairs while larger projects remain under pressure.

TJX is still growing, but the value consumer is not one-dimensional.

And now Walmart gets to tell us what it is seeing across the broadest swath of American households.

That makes today’s report especially important.

The consumer is not simply strong or weak. The behavior is much more nuanced.

People will spend when the value equation makes sense. They will buy groceries. They will replace something that breaks. They will shop back-to-school. They will use same-day delivery. They will hunt for deals at TJ Maxx.

But they may delay the large renovation, the expensive discretionary purchase or anything that feels less urgent. That is why retail technology matters so much right now. The retailers that can see demand clearly, understand inventory accurately and respond quickly have an advantage.

RFID can improve visibility. AI can improve decisions. Automation can improve execution. Digital fulfillment can improve convenience. And better data can help retailers understand which customers are spending, what they are buying and why.

The interesting part is that these technologies are no longer operating in isolation. They are beginning to form an intelligent retail operating system. That may ultimately be the biggest retail technology story of 2026.

Not AI by itself. Not RFID by itself. Not automation by itself. The connection between them.

This week’s earnings are showing us that retailers can still grow in this environment. But growth increasingly has to be earned through better merchandise, better pricing, better execution and a better understanding of the customer.

Today, Walmart gets the microphone.

Tomorrow, we’ll have a much clearer picture of whether the value consumer is holding up or whether the July retail sales slowdown was the beginning of something bigger.

The consumer is still spending.

But value has become the price of admission.

Retail’s New Playbook: Smarter Stores, Selective Growth and a Consumer Still Hunting for Value

Retail had a relatively quiet weekend, but there was plenty to digest heading into one of the most important earnings weeks of the summer. The biggest takeaway is that retailers are becoming more selective about almost everything. They are selective about stores, selective about technology investments, selective about inventory and increasingly selective about how they reach customers. Shoppers are doing much the same thing on the other side of the transaction. They are still spending, but they are looking harder for value, comparing prices and spreading purchases across promotions and channels.

That tension will be front and center this week as Home Depot reports Tuesday, Target, Lowe’s and TJX report Wednesday, and Walmart reports Thursday. The earnings should provide a much clearer picture of whether consumers are simply shifting where they spend or beginning to pull back altogether.

Latest Retail Tech News

Target made one of the clearest statements yet about where retail technology is heading by naming Chandhu Nair its first Chief AI Officer. Nair joins from Lowe’s and will focus on using AI across the organization, including customer experience, merchandising and forecasting. Target has already been experimenting with AI through its Trend Brain system and partnerships with OpenAI and Google. The move matters because AI is moving out of the innovation lab and into the operating model. Target is not simply adding another AI tool. It is creating executive ownership around the technology, and I expect more retailers to follow.

Kroger made a parallel move on the digital side, bringing on Jet.com co-founder Nate Faust as Executive Vice President and Chief Ecommerce Officer. Faust previously worked at Walmart, where he focused on ecommerce supply chain and delivery operations. The hire comes as Kroger continues working to build a more competitive digital grocery business while using its physical stores as fulfillment assets. Grocery ecommerce is increasingly less about having a good app and more about fulfillment economics, delivery speed and the ability to make stores efficient digital nodes.

Kroger is also pushing further into store automation. Its Simbe Tally inventory robot program recently activated its 500th unit at a Smith’s Marketplace location. Store leadership credited the robots with improving in-stock conditions while allowing associates to spend more time with customers. That is the more interesting part of the automation story. The goal isn’t simply to replace a manual task. It is to change how associates spend their time while improving the quality of information available to the retailer.

Amazon continues to build the physical infrastructure behind its digital business as well. Its campus locker network now reaches more than 750 U.S. college locations, while the company has finalized a framework agreement with AutoStore around warehouse automation. The agreement does not include firm purchasing commitments, but it reflects the continued push toward highly automated fulfillment networks. The broader lesson is that ecommerce is increasingly dependent on physical infrastructure. The website may be digital, but the competitive advantage often comes from what happens after the customer clicks buy.

The AI shopping story is also moving quickly outside the United States. UK homewares retailer Dunelm launched an AI shopping assistant built with Google Cloud that allows customers to describe what they are looking for in natural language and visualize products in their homes. Just Eat has been expanding an AI voice ordering assistant across Europe, while Delivery Hero has introduced an agentic AI assistant designed to help neighborhood businesses manage operations through WhatsApp. These developments point toward a future in which customers may not browse traditional menus, websites or search results at all. They may simply tell an AI what they want.

That creates a new challenge for retailers. For years, companies invested heavily in owning the digital customer relationship through websites, apps and loyalty programs. If AI becomes the primary interface between the shopper and the retailer, product data, inventory accuracy, pricing and fulfillment capabilities become even more important. The retailer needs to make sure an AI agent understands what it sells, where it is available and why the customer should choose it.

Globally, that same push toward intelligent retail infrastructure is showing up in other ways. AS Watson, the parent company behind brands including Superdrug, Watsons and Kruidvat, signed a multiyear agreement to deploy the NCR Voyix Commerce Platform across brands in Europe and Asia, including point of sale, self-checkout and loyalty capabilities. Belgian grocer Delhaize is expanding demand forecasting technology across hundreds of affiliated stores, while Spanish retailer Supermercados El Jamón is moving toward a large-scale electronic shelf label deployment. These aren’t isolated technology projects. They are examples of retailers trying to connect the physical store to a more responsive digital operating model.

Store Openings and Closings

The store story remains decidedly mixed, and that may be the most important thing to understand about physical retail right now. Kroger is proceeding with additional closures as part of its previously announced plan to eliminate roughly 60 underperforming stores by the end of 2026. Albertsons is also continuing to review and reduce portions of its store portfolio. Neither story means grocery retailers are abandoning physical stores. Instead, they are reallocating capital toward locations and markets where they believe the economics are stronger.

At the same time, other retailers continue to expand. Birkenstock recently added new U.S. locations, while Ross Stores continues to add Ross Dress for Less and dd’s Discounts stores. The contrast is telling. Physical retail isn’t disappearing. The economics of individual locations are becoming more important. Retailers with strong unit economics, differentiated value propositions and the right locations are still willing to invest in expansion.

That is increasingly how executives should think about the store portfolio. The question isn’t simply how many stores a company operates. It is what role each location plays. A store can generate sales, support ecommerce fulfillment, serve as a showroom, act as a customer-service hub and strengthen a local brand presence. The best retailers are increasingly evaluating all of those roles when deciding whether a store deserves more capital.

The same dynamic is playing out globally. Indian menswear brand Snitch opened its first Kolkata location and its 127th store nationally, while Never Fully Dressed continues its London expansion. Warner Bros. is also preparing to open what it describes as the UK’s largest Harry Potter store on Oxford Street in November. These openings show that physical retail can still be a powerful brand-building tool when the experience gives customers something they cannot replicate online.

Retail Stocks

Friday was a softer day for the broader market following the disappointing July retail sales report. The S&P 500 declined 0.17%, while the Dow fell 0.20%. Among the retail names in the Retail Index watchlist, TJX declined 1.11%, Amazon fell 0.94%, Walmart slipped 0.39% and Target declined 0.66%.

Culture and the Consumer

Back-to-school remains the dominant cultural retail story as August moves into its second half. The National Retail Federation expects combined K-12 and college back-to-school spending to reach a record $146.8 billion this year, with K-12 spending projected at $43.3 billion. Shoppers are also starting earlier, with many consumers beginning their purchases in June and July rather than waiting until the final weeks before school begins.

But record spending doesn’t necessarily mean consumers feel flush. The behavior underneath the number is more interesting. Families are comparing prices, waiting for promotions and spreading purchases across several months. They are still buying the products they need, but they are becoming more intentional about when and where they buy them.

That behavior is increasingly representative of the broader consumer. A shopper can be financially cautious and still spend heavily on a particular category if the purchase feels necessary, valuable or emotionally important. That is why value retailers continue to perform well while premium brands can also succeed when they create enough differentiation.

The cultural side of retail is becoming just as important. Celebrity brands, nostalgia and fandom continue to generate attention, while pop-ups and experiential retail give customers reasons to physically engage with brands. The store is increasingly becoming part transaction, part entertainment and part community.

The Week Ahead

The retail earnings calendar gets serious Tuesday when Home Depot reports. The company will provide an important read on housing, big-ticket purchases, professional customers and whether consumers are willing to make larger discretionary investments.

Wednesday is arguably the most important day of the week, with Target, Lowe’s and TJX all reporting. That combination gives us three very different views of the consumer. Target represents broad general merchandise, Lowe’s represents home improvement and TJX represents the increasingly important value and off-price segment.

Thursday brings Walmart, perhaps the single most important consumer read of the week. Walmart’s exposure to grocery, general merchandise, ecommerce and lower-income households makes its commentary particularly valuable. Ross Stores also reports, giving investors another look at value-oriented spending.

Today to Watch

Monday itself is relatively light on major retail earnings, which makes it a useful day to focus on the setup for the week. Watch for additional commentary around back-to-school traffic, promotional intensity, tariffs, inventory positioning and consumer trade-down behavior.

On the technology side, AI shopping and retail automation remain the biggest themes. Target’s new AI leadership structure, Kroger’s continued investment in ecommerce and inventory robotics, and the growing use of AI shopping assistants overseas all point in the same direction. Retailers are trying to make the business more responsive, from the moment a customer begins searching to the moment an item reaches the customer’s hands.

The Retail Index Take

The most interesting thing about retail right now is how closely the consumer story and the technology story are starting to intersect.

Consumers are still spending, but they are becoming more deliberate. They are starting earlier, comparing prices, waiting for promotions and spreading purchases over time. Retailers are responding in much the same way. They are becoming more selective about stores, inventory, labor and technology.

Kroger is closing locations that don’t make economic sense while investing in ecommerce. Other retailers are still expanding because their store economics remain attractive. Target is putting AI directly into its executive structure. Kroger is using robotics to improve inventory visibility. Amazon continues to build automated fulfillment infrastructure. Across the industry, RFID, AI, computer vision, digital shelf labels and automation are gradually becoming pieces of the same puzzle.

It is a store that can see, understand and respond.

But technology isn’t going to determine the winners by itself. The consumer will.

This week should give us a much clearer answer about how healthy that consumer really is. The headlines will be about earnings, but the more important story will be what those earnings tell us about how people are adapting to higher prices, changing employment conditions and a more value-conscious retail environment.

The consumer is still spending.

The retailer is getting more selective.

And technology is becoming the connective tissue between the two.

That is the retail story this week.

Retail’s biggest stories this week aren’t really about retail at all. They’re about identity, nostalgia, scarcity, and the widening gap between what shoppers can afford and what they want to feel. Five threads, pulled from trade coverage and consumer data published in the past several days, sketch out where retail culture actually sits heading into fall.

Back-to-school shopping is a mood board, not a checklist

The 2026 back-to-school season is less about supplies and more about self-expression, and the spending backs that up. Total back-to-school retail sales are projected to reach $85.42 billion in 2026, a 3.3 percent year-over-year increase that outpaces last year’s 2.5 percent growth, even as the K-12 segment alone approaches $39.4 billion, one of the highest totals on record. What’s shifted isn’t the size of the spend, it’s what’s driving it. A roundup drawing on data from YPulse, Morning Consult, the National Retail Federation, LTK, and Yahoo found that clear backpacks, bag charms, and JanSport styling are giving the season a distinctly 2006-revival feel, while dorm rooms and lockers are being treated as identity projects, mixed with thrifted finds and handmade pieces rather than big-box uniformity. The same coverage points to a generational behavior shift: all-nighters and late-night scrolling are giving way to early rising and wellness routines among students.

Two other data points round out the picture. Deloitte research found 48 percent of shoppers plan to prioritize American-made products this season, rising to 62 percent among Gen Z specifically, suggesting origin and values messaging now compete directly with price as a purchase driver. And generative AI has become a mainstream shopping tool for the category: a third of parents overall say they’ll use it for back-to-school shopping, but that jumps to 67 percent among Gen Z, who are using it mostly to compare prices and generate shopping lists rather than to discover new products. For a category retailers used to treat as purely transactional, that’s a meaningful signal. The kids buying pencil cases this month are shopping the same way their older siblings shop for going-out clothes, driven by personal branding and platform-native taste rather than store circulars.

Collectible culture is maturing past the hype cycle

Labubu was retail’s defining obsession of the last two years, and the culture conversation this week is about what comes after the frenzy. Commentary tracking the toy’s trajectory describes a shift from speculative, resale-driven mania, when premiums once topped 400 percent, to something closer to sustained fandom, with resale markups now settling in the 22 to 38 percent range even as trading volume keeps climbing year over year. The buyer base is aging up too: a growing share of transactions now comes from collectors in their 30s and 40s who are integrating the figures into curated home displays rather than flipping them for profit, a marked change from a market that was almost entirely speculation-driven just two years ago.

Pop Mart’s own strategy mirrors that shift. Labubu-related products reportedly contributed roughly a quarter of the company’s total revenue at peak, pushing its market capitalization past $40 billion and ahead of legacy toy makers like Hasbro and Mattel, and the company is now leaning into new intellectual property, cross-brand collaborations, and international store expansion rather than betting everything on one character staying scarce. The broader lesson for retail culture watchers is that the blind-box mechanic that made Labubu a phenomenon is proving to be a durable category rather than a one-off moment, and competitors from Superplastic to Medicom’s Bearbrick are racing to claim a piece of it before the format fully commoditizes.

Celebrity retail is fully fluent in creator culture

This week’s celebrity brand activity reads like a content calendar as much as a product slate, and the pacing has changed as much as the products themselves. Kim Kardashian’s new energy drink venture, UPDATE, is generating buzz through a deliberately satirical, headline-baiting campaign rather than a traditional launch push, while Matthew and Camila McConaughey’s Pantalones tequila tied a limited-run margarita ice cream collaboration to National Tequila Day, a single-day cultural hook rather than a seasonal rollout. Fragrance is having a particularly active month: country artist Megan Moroney debuted her own scent this week, while Ariana Grande extended her established Cloud line with a smokier, cozier variant timed to the shift into fall.

What ties these together is speed and specificity. These are short-lived, occasion-driven drops built for a single cultural moment, a holiday, a trending audio clip, a seasonal mood, rather than shelf-stable product lines meant to sit on assortment for a year. That’s a meaningfully different playbook than the celebrity licensing deals of a decade ago, and it means retail buyers now need to think about celebrity partnerships closer to how they think about influencer content calendars than traditional vendor relationships.

Pop-ups have outgrown the novelty phase

Experiential and short-term retail formats are no longer a marketing experiment, they’re outperforming on hard metrics. The Experiential Commerce Institute found the pop-up shop success rate climbed to 84 percent in 2026, with 91 percent of participating brands reporting measurable increases in brand recall within 30 days of an event. Separate research from Deloitte Digital shows repeat pop-up intent among brands jumped to 67 percent, up from 58 percent, and companies running two or more pop-ups reported 23 percent higher customer lifetime value than those running none. The underlying driver is generational: financial technology platform Adyen found 73 percent of 18-to-27-year-olds shop in-store at least once a week, compared with 65 percent of Baby Boomers, meaning the demographic marketers spent two decades writing off as digital-only is now measurably more likely to walk into a physical store than their grandparents.

The format is also proving to be a genuine sales channel, not just a brand exercise. Pop Mart’s own TikTok Shop activations around Labubu drove tens of millions of dollars in livestream sales in a single push, an example of scarcity, physical queuing, and social content compounding into revenue rather than just impressions. This week’s pop culture trend coverage adds texture to the format itself, pointing to foldable-phone-themed pop-up pubs, community-forward coffee spaces, and revived SPF activations as the specific shapes these events are taking heading into fall.

Nostalgia and fandom are doing the heavy lifting in branding

Zooming out, this week’s branding trend coverage points to sports and entertainment nostalgia as the dominant creative engine across retail marketing right now, from athlete-legacy apparel capsules to entertainment IP expanding into fragrance and jewelry categories that would have seemed like an odd licensing stretch even a few years ago. Paired with continued momentum around fandom-driven flagship retail and content-first store concepts, the throughline is consistent: brands are betting that shared cultural reference points, whether a franchise, an artist, or a decade, convert better than product features alone.

The bigger picture

Taken together, these stories describe a retail culture organized around belonging rather than need. Back-to-school shopping has become a personal branding exercise for teenagers, backed by nearly $86 billion in spend and a values-driven layer that didn’t exist a decade ago. Collectibles have matured from speculative frenzy into a stable identity market with its own aging, increasingly deliberate buyer base. Celebrity retail has fully absorbed the pacing and tone of social content, trading shelf-stable licensing for single-moment cultural hooks. Physical pop-ups have gone from marketing novelty to a measurable, repeatable revenue channel, particularly among the Gen Z shoppers retailers spent years assuming had abandoned stores altogether. And branding at large is leaning harder on nostalgia and fandom to do work that used to belong to product differentiation.

Here’s your Friday intelligence brief…… This one is on the house today.

Retail had a busy Thursday, and the story was not simply about another strong market day. The more interesting development was the way retailers are increasingly trying to connect technology, inventory, customer data and the physical store into one operating model.

Target is building a digital twin of its supply chain. AI shopping is forcing retailers to rethink who owns the customer relationship. Avery Dennison is pushing RFID further into the circular economy. Tapestry delivered another strong quarter for Coach, but investors immediately focused on what happens next. And Dillard’s produced a substantial profit increase that was helped by tariff refunds.

Meanwhile, the macro backdrop continues to soften. July producer prices were unchanged from June, adding another piece of evidence that inflation may be losing momentum. That is good news for retailers, but the bigger consumer test arrives this morning with July retail sales.

THE 10 STORIES THAT MATTER

1. Target Is Building a Digital Twin of Its Supply Chain

Target is using a digital-twin platform called Proxima to model its supply chain and test inventory decisions before implementing them in the real world. The company says the technology allows teams to simulate changes to inventory positioning and supply chain operations in an effort to improve product availability and reduce the risk associated with operational changes. (Target Corporation)

Why it matters: This is an important step beyond traditional supply chain analytics. Digital twins allow retailers to move from looking backward at what happened to modeling what could happen next. Combined with RFID, real-time inventory data and AI, the digital twin could eventually become a decision layer for the physical retail network.

Target: How Target is Accelerating Technology to Modernize Its Supply Chain

2. AI Shopping Is Forcing Retailers to Rethink Loyalty

Reuters reported Thursday that the rise of AI chatbots handling shopping journeys is forcing merchants to think carefully about how they maintain direct relationships with customers. As AI increasingly becomes an intermediary between shoppers and retailers, companies risk losing control over customer data and the shopping experience. (Reuters)

That creates a new strategic problem. Retailers spent years building websites, apps, loyalty programs and first-party customer databases to own the customer relationship. AI agents could insert themselves between the shopper and retailer.

Why it matters: The next battle in ecommerce may not be about who has the best website. It could be about who becomes the preferred merchant inside an AI-powered shopping journey.

Reuters: Rise of AI shopping pushes merchants to protect loyalty

3. Tapestry’s Coach Engine Is Still Running, But Kate Spade Is Dragging

Tapestry reported another strong quarter, with overall revenue increasing 9% to $1.88 billion and Coach continuing to drive growth. Coach sales rose 15% in the fiscal fourth quarter, while Kate Spade sales declined 7%. (Reuters)

The market, however, was focused on the future. Tapestry’s outlook called for fiscal 2027 revenue of approximately $8.4 billion to $8.5 billion, and shares fell roughly 15% following the report.

Why it matters: Coach has become one of retail’s better examples of a brand successfully reconnecting with younger consumers. But Tapestry’s results also show how quickly investor sentiment can change when one brand begins to lose momentum.

Reuters: Tapestry forecasts muted annual sales as Kate Spade struggles

4. Dillard’s Profit Jumps, But Tariff Refunds Tell Part of the Story

Dillard’s reported second-quarter net income of $97.7 million, up from the prior year, while sales were relatively flat. The company benefited materially from tariff refunds, which contributed to the improvement in profitability and gross margin. (GlobeNewswire)

The underlying merchandise picture was mixed. Ladies’ accessories and lingerie performed well, while some apparel categories remained softer.

Why it matters: Dillard’s is another reminder that tariff economics are now showing up directly in retail earnings. A tariff refund can provide a significant one-time benefit, but it does not necessarily represent an improvement in the underlying consumer or merchandise business.

Dillard’s: Second Quarter and Year-to-Date Results

5. Avery Dennison Gets RFID Tags Approved for Better Recycling Compatibility

Avery Dennison received RecyClass approval for its AD CleanFlake RFID technology, expanding the compatibility of its RFID labels with PET recycling processes in Europe and North America. (RFID JOURNAL)

This may sound like a niche RFID development, but it is part of a larger shift in the industry. RFID is increasingly being evaluated not only for inventory visibility but also for traceability, product lifecycle management and digital product passport initiatives.

Why it matters: The more RFID becomes embedded in products, packaging and supply chains, the more important the end-of-life implications become. Recycling-compatible RFID could help reduce one of the objections to putting intelligent labels on a much broader range of products.

RFID Journal: Avery Dennison Receives First-to-Market RecyClass Technology Approval

6. Producer Prices Are Flat, Giving the Fed Another Reason to Wait

The July Producer Price Index was unchanged from June, while producer prices increased 4.7% year over year. Final-demand goods prices declined 0.7%, while final-demand services increased 0.2%. (Bureau of Labor Statistics)

The report follows Wednesday’s relatively soft CPI report and last week’s weaker employment data.

Why it matters: For retailers, producer prices are important because they provide an early look at cost pressure moving through the supply chain. A combination of stable consumer prices and softer producer prices could give retailers more room to manage margins and promotions.

There is still a caveat. Some service categories remain expensive, and energy prices can change quickly.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: July 2026 Producer Price Index

7. Tyson Is Closing or Selling Three U.S. Beef Facilities

Tyson Foods announced Thursday that it plans to close or sell three U.S. beef facilities as the company responds to difficult conditions in the beef business. (Reuters)

The move is another signal that food supply chains remain under pressure. Meat processing is particularly sensitive to livestock availability, labor costs, transportation and commodity pricing.

Why it matters: Grocery retailers are increasingly managing supply chain risk at the category level. Changes in food processing capacity can eventually affect availability, pricing and sourcing for retailers and restaurants.

Reuters: Tyson Foods will close or sell three U.S. beef facilities

8. JD.com Expects China’s Electronics Market to Improve

China’s JD.com reported quarterly revenue below the year-ago period but said it expects electronics demand to improve during the second half of the year. (Reuters)

JD.com remains one of the most important ecommerce and retail technology platforms in China, particularly in electronics and fulfillment.

Why it matters: China’s consumer market remains an important indicator for global retailers and brands. A recovery in electronics spending would be particularly relevant for technology manufacturers and international brands exposed to Chinese demand.

Reuters: JD.com expects second-half electronics sales to improve

9. L.L.Bean Is Turning Loyalty Into a Brand Experience

L.L.Bean launched a new loyalty program that combines traditional points and perks with a charitable component. Members can participate in decisions involving the company’s charitable investments. (Retail Dive)

It is an interesting evolution of loyalty. Rather than simply rewarding customers with discounts, the program is designed to connect purchasing behavior with the values associated with the brand.

Why it matters: Loyalty programs are increasingly becoming less about points and more about identity, personalization and community. That matters as retailers compete for customer attention in an environment where AI can make product comparison easier than ever.

Retail Dive: L.L.Bean rolls out loyalty program with perks for a purpose

10. Anthropologie Is Expanding Beauty Inside Its Stores

Anthropologie is expanding its beauty assortment and creating dedicated in-store beauty installations as the category becomes a bigger part of the retailer’s offering. (Modern Retail)

The strategy is another example of specialty retailers using physical stores to create discovery and experience rather than simply providing a place to transact.

Why it matters: Beauty remains one of the strongest categories for experiential retail. It can increase traffic, encourage discovery and create reasons for customers to spend more time in stores.

Modern Retail: Anthropologie is giving its beauty business a makeover

LATEST RETAIL TECH NEWS

The most important technology development from Thursday may be Target’s digital twin.

There is a reason digital twins are becoming more interesting to retailers. Physical retail is complicated. Moving inventory between distribution centers and stores, changing replenishment rules, adjusting allocations or modifying fulfillment processes can have unintended consequences.

A digital twin gives retailers an opportunity to test those decisions virtually before making them operational.

Target’s Proxima initiative is particularly interesting when viewed alongside the industry’s broader movement toward RFID, computer vision and AI. RFID can tell a retailer what is physically happening. A digital twin can model what could happen next. AI can increasingly help recommend the best response.

That is a much more powerful technology stack than any one application operating alone. (Target Corporation)

The other major technology story is AI shopping.

Retailers have spent years building direct digital relationships with consumers. AI agents threaten to change that relationship by becoming the interface through which customers discover and purchase products. Reuters’ reporting on Adyen’s research shows why merchants are increasingly concerned about maintaining direct customer relationships as AI takes a larger role in shopping. (Reuters)

For retailers, this creates a new optimization problem. Product information must be accurate. Inventory must be current. Pricing must be competitive. Fulfillment must be reliable. And loyalty programs need to provide enough value to convince customers that there is a reason to stay directly connected to the retailer.

The AI shopping era could make first-party data more valuable, not less.

STORE OPENINGS AND CLOSINGS

The store story remains a tale of two retail markets.

On one side, retailers are still expanding where they see strong returns. Costco opened a new 164,000-square-foot warehouse in Otsego, Minnesota on Thursday, part of the company’s broader 2026 expansion plan. (The US Sun)

TJX also continues to pursue aggressive store expansion, with plans for 146 net-new stores in 2026 and a long-term ambition to reach 7,000 locations globally. (Retail TouchPoints)

On the other side, retailers are closing locations that no longer make economic sense. Kroger continues to optimize its store base, while Tyson is reducing physical production capacity in beef processing. The broader store portfolio story is therefore not one of simple contraction.

It is optimization.

Retailers are asking harder questions about the productivity of each location, the demographics surrounding it, the cost to operate it and the role it plays in an omnichannel network.

The store is no longer evaluated solely on four-wall sales.

It is part showroom, part fulfillment node, part marketing channel and part customer-service operation.

RETAIL STOCKS

Thursday was another strong day for the broader market. The S&P 500 reached a new record high, gaining about 0.65%, while the Dow rose 0.13%. Technology stocks continued to lead as investors responded to softer inflation data and stronger AI-related demand. (Reuters)

Within the retail watchlist, TJX rose 1.10%, while Target gained 0.98%. Amazon declined 0.80% and Walmart slipped 0.25%. (MarketWatch)

The bigger retail stock story was Tapestry. Despite a strong quarter, the stock fell sharply after the company issued a cautious outlook, showing how quickly investors can punish a retailer when future growth expectations change. (Reuters)

For the broader watchlist of WMT, AMZN, COST, TGT, HD, LOW, TJX, ROST, BURL, DG, DLTR, KR, ACI, BBY, ULTA, DKS, ASO, NKE, LULU, ANF, GAP, M, JWN and WSM, the important takeaway is less about one day’s movement and more about what earnings over the next week will reveal.

Target, TJX, Lowe’s, Home Depot, Walmart and Ross Stores are all approaching earnings, creating a rare opportunity to compare consumer behavior across general merchandise, value, home improvement and mass-market retail.

RETAIL EARNINGS CALENDAR

August 18: Home Depot

August 19: Target, TJX Companies and Lowe’s

August 20: Walmart and Ross Stores

August 25: Williams-Sonoma and Abercrombie & Fitch

August 26: Dollar General, Burlington, Gap and Ulta Beauty

August 27: Best Buy

The upcoming schedule should provide a broad cross-section of consumer health. Home Depot and Lowe’s will tell us about housing and big-ticket spending. Target will provide a read on general merchandise. TJX and Ross will show how strong the value proposition remains. Walmart will provide perhaps the broadest consumer read of all. (ECONALK)

TODAY TO WATCH

July Retail Sales

The biggest retail-specific event of the week arrives this morning.

The Census Bureau scheduled the July Advance Monthly Sales for Retail and Food Services for 8:30 a.m. ET on August 14. (Census.gov)

This is the number that matters most for retailers today.

The macro setup is now relatively clear. July CPI was softer than feared. July PPI was flat. The labor market has weakened. Now we get to see whether consumers are responding.

Consumer Sentiment

The preliminary University of Michigan consumer sentiment report is also due today, providing another look at household confidence.

Retail

Back-to-school remains the key seasonal retail event. Consumers are increasingly balancing higher household costs with the need to purchase school supplies, apparel and technology. PwC found that 47% of parents expected to spend more this year and that 73% planned to use AI somewhere in their shopping journey. (PwC)

That combination of value sensitivity and AI adoption could become a defining characteristic of the 2026 holiday season as well.

THE RETAIL INDEX TAKE

There is a theme running through almost every major retail story this week.

Retailers are trying to become more intelligent.

Target is modeling its supply chain with a digital twin.

AI is becoming part of the shopping journey.

RFID is becoming more deeply embedded into products and supply chains.

Loyalty programs are becoming more experiential.

Stores are becoming more specialized.

And retailers are getting more selective about where they invest capital.

The common denominator is data.

Retailers have never lacked data. What they have lacked is the ability to connect all of it quickly enough to make better decisions.

Inventory data lives in one system.

Customer data lives in another.

Supply chain data lives somewhere else.

Store operations have another set of systems.

The opportunity now is to connect those worlds.

RFID can provide a real-time view of the physical movement of merchandise. Digital twins can simulate how the network will respond. AI can identify patterns and recommend actions. Automation can execute those decisions.

That is the retail technology stack worth watching.

The other major theme is selectivity.

Tapestry is a perfect example. Coach is performing exceptionally well, but Kate Spade is struggling. Investors are rewarding the growth they see while questioning whether it can continue.

Dillard’s provides another example. Profitability improved significantly, but a meaningful portion of the benefit came from tariff refunds.

The message for retail executives is straightforward.

Headline growth isn’t enough anymore.

Investors want to know where the growth is coming from, how sustainable it is and whether the economics underneath it are improving.

That is also true of technology.

A retailer does not need another AI pilot simply because AI is popular.

It needs AI that improves forecasting, reduces labor, increases conversion, improves inventory availability or makes the customer experience better.

The same is true for RFID.

Inventory accuracy is valuable.

But inventory accuracy that improves fulfillment, reduces labor, prevents lost sales and gives AI better data is much more valuable.

The next generation of retail technology will therefore be judged less by what the technology can do and more by what the retailer can accomplish because of it.

And that brings us back to the consumer.

The inflation data is encouraging.

The technology investment is accelerating.

The store network is being optimized.

But at the end of the day, retail still comes down to one question:

Will consumers keep spending?

We get the next important answer this morning.

Friday’s retail sales report could tell us whether the consumer is still carrying the economy, or whether retailers need to start preparing for a more cautious second half.

Either way, the retailers that have the best visibility into their customers, inventory and operations will be in the strongest position to respond.

That is where retail is heading.

More visibility. More intelligence. More selective investment.

And, ideally, better decisions.

Inflation Gives Retail a Little Breathing Room. Now We Watch the Consumer.

Retail gets a little breathing room this morning. July inflation came in largely as expected, with the Consumer Price Index rising 0.1% from June and 3.4% year over year. Core CPI, which excludes food and energy, increased 0.2% for the month and 2.5% over the past year. After last week’s unexpectedly weak jobs report, the inflation data gives the Federal Reserve a little more flexibility as it considers what to do next with interest rates. For retailers, that is welcome news, but it doesn’t solve the bigger question facing the industry: is the consumer still spending?

That answer comes Friday when the Census Bureau releases July retail sales. The distinction is important. CPI tells us what consumers are paying, while retail sales tell us what consumers are actually buying. With employment weakening, tariffs creating uncertainty around merchandise costs and energy prices remaining volatile, Friday’s report could provide one of the clearest reads yet on the health of the consumer heading into the second half of the year.

Inflation Is Cooling, But the Consumer Is Still Paying More

The July inflation report delivered something close to what markets wanted. Headline CPI increased 0.1% month over month and 3.4% year over year, while core inflation rose 0.2% for the month and 2.5% from a year earlier. There was no major inflation surprise that would immediately force the Federal Reserve into a more restrictive posture.

That doesn’t mean consumers suddenly feel comfortable. Prices remain significantly higher than they were several years ago, and the pressure isn’t evenly distributed. Food prices moved only modestly in July, while food away from home increased 0.3%. Apparel prices also increased, and shelter remains one of the largest contributors to overall inflation. Energy prices provided some relief during the month, but that could prove temporary given the recent move in oil prices.

For retailers, this creates an increasingly fragmented consumer environment. A household spending heavily on housing, food and transportation may be cutting back somewhere else. Another consumer may continue spending on premium apparel, travel or experiences. The result is a retail market where value, convenience and brand relevance are becoming increasingly important.

Markets Get the Inflation Number They Wanted

Wall Street’s initial reaction to the inflation report was positive. U.S. equity futures moved higher as investors continued to assess whether the combination of weaker employment and stable inflation gives the Federal Reserve enough room to consider a September rate cut.

That matters to retail because interest rates influence far more than the stock market. They affect consumer credit, housing activity, financing costs and the cost of capital for retailers. Lower rates could eventually provide some relief for retailers looking to invest in stores, technology and supply chain infrastructure.

But there is another variable to watch: energy. Oil prices remain elevated amid continuing uncertainty around U.S. and Iran negotiations and the Strait of Hormuz. If energy prices remain high, retailers could find themselves dealing with a difficult combination of higher transportation costs and pressure on household budgets.

For now, inflation is cooperating. The question is whether energy prices let it continue to do so.

Target Is Putting AI Directly in the C-Suite

One of the more important retail technology developments this week came from Target, which appointed Chandhu Nair as its first Chief AI Officer. Nair joins from Lowe’s, where he led data and AI innovation. Target is also elevating Purvi Shah to lead user experience as the company continues expanding its technology strategy.

The significance isn’t simply that Target hired another AI executive. It is that AI is increasingly becoming an enterprise operating priority rather than an IT experiment. Target is already using AI to analyze trends and consumer behavior and is exploring AI-powered shopping experiences through partnerships with companies including OpenAI and Google.

The question for other retailers is no longer whether they should experiment with AI. Most already are.

The bigger question is who owns the transformation and how does it become part of the operating model?

The emergence of Chief AI Officers across retail could be an early indication that AI is moving from the innovation lab into the executive suite.

Walmart Is Turning the Shelf Into a Connected Endpoint

Walmart is taking a different but equally interesting approach to retail technology. Its digital shelf label rollout is moving well beyond replacing paper price tags. The company is using the labels to help associates find products that need replenishment and to support the picking of online orders.

That may sound like a small operational improvement, but it represents a much bigger shift in how retailers think about store technology. The shelf label is no longer simply a display. It becomes a connected endpoint that can communicate with employees, support fulfillment and potentially interact with other systems throughout the store.

This is the direction physical retail technology is heading.

A device that once performed one job can increasingly perform several. The shelf becomes connected. The inventory becomes visible. The associate becomes digitally enabled. The store starts to behave less like a collection of fixtures and more like a connected operating environment.

And that brings us directly to RFID.

RFID Is Becoming More Than an Inventory Technology

RFID has traditionally been sold to retailers as an inventory accuracy solution. Tag the merchandise, scan the inventory and know what you have.

That value proposition remains important, but the technology is becoming much more interesting as retailers begin thinking about the data RFID generates.

An RFID system can provide a real-time stream of physical-world events. It can tell a retailer that a product arrived at a distribution center, moved into a store, was picked for an online order or unexpectedly moved between locations. When that information is connected to other retail data, it becomes much more valuable.

Imagine combining RFID events with sales velocity, ecommerce demand, store inventory, promotions and fulfillment capacity. Instead of simply knowing that inventory exists, a retailer can begin understanding what is happening to that inventory and why.

That creates a potentially powerful equation:

RFID provides visibility. AI provides intelligence. Automation provides action.

The technology is not there yet in every retail environment, but that is increasingly where the industry is headed.

The AI Infrastructure Cycle Is Still Running Hot

While retailers are becoming more selective about technology investments, the broader AI infrastructure cycle continues to run at full speed. TSMC’s July revenue increased roughly 45% year over year, reinforcing the strength of demand for the semiconductor infrastructure supporting AI.

That may seem far removed from retail, but it is an important part of the story. Every AI-powered search experience, computer vision application, demand forecasting system and future agentic workflow ultimately depends on compute, networking and semiconductor infrastructure.

The continued strength of that market suggests that the technology ecosystem supporting retail AI is still expanding rapidly.

The question is increasingly moving away from whether AI investment will continue and toward where the next wave of investment will generate measurable business value.

Retailers are going to be demanding an answer to that question.

Agentic AI Is Moving Toward Supply Chain Execution

The next phase of retail AI may be even more significant than the current generation of copilots.

For the past several years, retailers have been experimenting with AI that can summarize information, answer questions and generate recommendations. The emerging opportunity is to create systems that can coordinate actual operational workflows.

Research into agentic supply chain systems is exploring how specialized AI agents could coordinate demand forecasting, procurement, supplier management and replenishment while keeping humans involved in important decisions.

The difference is subtle but significant.

A traditional AI system might tell a supply chain manager that inventory is running low. An agentic system could potentially identify the problem, evaluate available inventory, consider demand and logistics constraints, coordinate the appropriate workflow and escalate the exception to a human when judgment is required.

Now combine that with RFID.

The physical environment generates the signal. AI interprets the signal. The system determines what should happen next.

That is where retail technology becomes much more than a collection of applications. It begins to look like an intelligent operating system for the physical supply chain.

Retail AI Will Create a New Set of Governance Questions

Of course, not every AI application will be as straightforward as inventory optimization.

Retailers are also experimenting with AI-powered pricing, personalization and promotions. Those applications can potentially improve margins and conversion, but they create an entirely different set of questions around transparency, fairness and consumer trust.

There is an important difference between AI helping a retailer forecast demand and AI determining what an individual customer pays.

The first is primarily an operational optimization problem.

The second is also a consumer trust problem.

As AI moves deeper into retail operations, the companies that succeed will need to think beyond model accuracy. They will need to think about governance, explainability, transparency and whether customers are comfortable with how the technology is being used.

The best retail AI strategy won’t simply be the one with the smartest model.

It will be the one consumers are willing to trust.

The Consumer Is the Next Big Question

All of this brings us back to the most important variable in retail: the consumer.

The labor market weakened significantly in July, with nonfarm payrolls declining by 23,000 and retail employment falling by approximately 19,000. Inflation remains elevated but relatively stable. Oil prices are creating another potential source of cost pressure.

Now retailers need to know whether consumers are responding.

That answer arrives Friday with the July retail sales report.

If spending remains strong, retailers have more flexibility to absorb higher costs and continue investing in technology. If spending begins to weaken, the operating environment changes quickly. Inventory turns, markdowns, promotions, labor productivity and working capital suddenly become much more important.

The report will be especially useful because the retail industry is approaching a critical planning period. Back-to-school is underway, holiday merchandise decisions are being made and retailers are positioning their supply chains for the most important selling season of the year.

Friday’s number could tell us whether the consumer is still carrying the retail economy.

The Retail Earnings Radar

The retail earnings calendar is about to get busy.

Tomorrow, Tapestry reports fiscal 2026 fourth-quarter and full-year results. Coach and Kate Spade will provide another useful read on the accessible-luxury consumer and whether shoppers are continuing to spend on brands they consider worth the premium.

Next Tuesday brings Home Depot, offering a read on housing, big-ticket purchases and professional customers.

Wednesday brings Target and TJX. That combination may be particularly useful because it provides two very different perspectives on the consumer. Target offers a broad view of general merchandise and the middle-market shopper, while TJX provides insight into the value-oriented consumer.

Then comes Walmart on Thursday.

Walmart may ultimately be the most important report of the group because its footprint across grocery, general merchandise, ecommerce and advertising provides an unusually broad view of consumer health. Its commentary around supply chain productivity and technology investment will also be closely watched.

Taken together, the sequence creates a useful progression:

Luxury and premium → Home improvement → General merchandise and value → Mass market and grocery.

By the end of next week, we should have a much clearer picture of where the consumer is heading.

TODAY TO WATCH

The big economic story today is inflation. The July CPI report came in close to expectations, giving markets some relief after last week’s weak employment report.

The technology story is Target’s decision to put AI directly into its executive leadership structure, along with Walmart’s continued expansion of connected store technology.

The supply chain story remains the intersection of RFID, real-time inventory visibility and AI.

And the consumer story is still waiting for Friday.

Tomorrow brings Tapestry earnings and July PPI. Friday brings retail sales.

Those two reports will help determine whether the current optimism around the consumer is justified.

THE RETAIL INDEX TAKE

The CPI report gives retail a little breathing room.

But it doesn’t answer the biggest question.

Is the consumer still spending?

That answer comes Friday.

In the meantime, the technology story continues to move in an increasingly interesting direction.

Target is putting AI directly into the C-suite. Walmart is turning digital shelf labels into connected operational tools. RFID is becoming increasingly valuable as a source of real-time physical-world data. AI infrastructure demand remains exceptionally strong. And researchers are exploring how AI agents could eventually coordinate increasingly complex supply chain decisions.

The pieces are beginning to connect.

For years, retailers bought technology to solve individual problems. A scanner for inventory. A mobile computer for associates. An RFID reader for cycle counts. A digital shelf label for pricing. A computer vision system for loss prevention.

The next generation is different.

The opportunity is to connect those technologies so that the retailer can see what is happening, understand what it means and respond quickly.

That is a much bigger proposition than digital transformation.

It is the beginning of an intelligent retail operating model.

And the retailers that build that model successfully may find that technology doesn’t simply make the store more digital.

It makes the entire business more productive.

THE WEEK AHEAD

Wednesday, August 12: July CPI
Thursday, August 13: Tapestry earnings + July PPI
Friday, August 14: July Retail Sales
Tuesday, August 18: Home Depot earnings
Wednesday, August 19: Target + TJX earnings
Thursday, August 20: Walmart earnings

The next eight days should answer two questions that will define the retail outlook for the rest of 2026:

How healthy is the consumer?

And:

How aggressively are retailers investing to become more productive?

Monday, August 10, 2026

Retail is entering the second half of 2026 with an increasingly interesting contradiction. The labor market is weakening, but investment in retail technology remains remarkably resilient. The latest U.S. jobs report showed that nonfarm payrolls fell by 23,000 in July, a sharp miss against expectations, while retail trade employment declined by approximately 19,000 positions. May and June payrolls were also revised lower by a combined 103,000 jobs. At the same time, technology companies serving the physical retail environment continue to report strong demand. Zebra Technologies delivered roughly 20% year-over-year revenue growth in the second quarter, while Impinj reported $108.4 million in quarterly revenue and highlighted record endpoint IC bookings.

The data does not prove that retailers are replacing workers with technology. It does, however, point toward a potentially important shift in the retail operating model. Retailers are becoming more selective about adding labor while continuing to invest in technologies that can increase productivity, visibility and automation. That could become one of the defining retail technology themes of the second half of 2026.

The Labor Market Is Sending Retail a Warning

The U.S. labor market delivered an unexpectedly weak report in July. Nonfarm payrolls declined by 23,000, while the unemployment rate came in at 4.1%. The labor-force participation rate also declined to 61.4%, creating a somewhat softer picture of the employment environment than the headline unemployment number suggests.

Retail was directly affected. Retail trade employment declined by approximately 19,000 positions during July, with some of the largest declines occurring among general merchandise retailers and gasoline stations.

The timing matters. Retailers are entering the back-to-school period and beginning to make increasingly important decisions around holiday staffing, inventory and promotions. A softer labor market could eventually translate into softer consumer demand, but it also puts greater emphasis on productivity.

That means technologies such as mobile computing, self-checkout, computer vision, RFID, workforce optimization and AI-enabled associate tools become increasingly relevant.

The question isn’t necessarily whether retailers can replace workers.

It is whether they can generate more productivity from the workforce they have.

That is a much more defensible, and potentially much more important, technology story.

Zebra’s Results Point to Continued Technology Investment

While the macro environment is becoming more challenging, Zebra Technologies delivered a strong second quarter. The company generated approximately $1.56 billion in revenue, representing more than 20% year-over-year growth, and raised its full-year outlook.

Zebra highlighted demand across self-service, frontline digitization, RFID, machine vision, mobile computing, automation and AI-enabled solutions. Retail and ecommerce were among the stronger areas of demand.

Zebra is an important barometer for technology spending across physical retail and supply chain operations. Its results do not mean every retailer is increasing technology budgets. They do provide strong evidence that customers continue purchasing technologies tied to operational digitization and automation.

That distinction matters.

The retail technology budget isn’t necessarily getting bigger everywhere. It is becoming more selective.

Projects that can demonstrate improvements in productivity, visibility, fulfillment or customer experience have a stronger business case than technology investments that exist primarily to modernize an aging environment.

Impinj Shows RFID Is Becoming a Bigger Story

Impinj reported $108.4 million in second-quarter revenue, up 10.7% year over year. The company also reported record quarterly endpoint IC bookings and highlighted demand across apparel, general merchandise, food and logistics.

That is significant because it suggests RFID adoption continues moving beyond a relatively narrow set of apparel inventory use cases.

For years, the RFID pitch was relatively simple: know what inventory you have.

The emerging proposition is considerably broader: know what is happening to your inventory in real time.

Read more

Latest Retail Tech News

Domestic

Albertsons Companies pushed further into agentic commerce, rolling out an AI powered grocery shopping plugin for its Safeway banner inside ChatGPT. The integration lets shoppers browse Safeway’s catalog and build a basket directly through OpenAI’s assistant, the latest sign that grocers are betting conversational AI can become a genuine discovery and purchase channel rather than a novelty chatbot bolted onto an existing app. It follows a string of similar agentic commerce moves from Walmart and Google that surfaced at NRF earlier this year, and suggests the race to plug retail catalogs into general purpose AI assistants is accelerating heading into the holiday season.

Elsewhere, New Jersey based grocery chain Village Super Market began testing Focal Systems computer vision technology to track on shelf inventory in real time. The pilot is aimed at catching out of stocks and phantom inventory, the gap between what a retailer’s system says is on the shelf and what is actually there, before it erodes sales. It is a familiar problem across grocery and general merchandise, and one that RFID and computer vision vendors have both been racing to solve at scale. Separately, retail merchandising AI platform intelo.ai released the latest version of its Merchant AI system, adding a persistent memory layer meant to make demand forecasts and assortment recommendations sharper the longer a retailer uses the platform, an attempt to bottle the tribal knowledge that senior planners usually carry only in their own heads.

Global

A cluster of loss prevention and store operations rollouts landed across the UK grocery sector on the same day. Asda kicked off a ten week pilot across its London stores using Auror’s crime reporting and intelligence platform, which is designed to help store teams flag and share information on repeat offenders across locations. Morrisons announced it will roll out Everseen’s computer vision powered Evercheck platform chainwide to catch shrink at checkout, and discount grocer Heron Foods deployed Facewatch’s facial recognition based crime prevention technology across its stores. Taken together, the three announcements underline how central computer vision and shared intelligence networks have become to UK grocers’ shrink strategies this year, echoing the loss prevention push retailers here in the US have made with RFID and AI backed exception reporting.

Read more

Retail woke up Monday to a market rally, a coffee-and-convenience culture story worth watching, and another sign that retail media is spreading well beyond the grocery aisle. Here is what mattered in the last 24 hours.

Latest Retail Tech News

Domestic

Circle K is stepping out of the shadows on retail media. The convenience giant has begun promoting its network, now branded Full Circle Media, which reaches more than 6,600 U.S. locations and delivers up to 200 million monthly impressions across in-store screens, fuel pump displays, app placements, and email. Director of retail media Joell Robinson told Modern Retail the company is moving past its proprietary upsell screens, called Lift, toward a fuller omnichannel offering with closed-loop measurement. The move puts Circle K in a crowded field where analysts note that most convenience-store retail media has taken a back seat to Amazon, Walmart, Kroger, and Instacart. With 14.7 million loyalty members in its redesigned Inner Circle program, Circle K is betting that loyalty data becomes its differentiator against bigger retail media players.

Fraud is migrating online even as in-store shrink stabilizes. A new industry outlook covering more than 60 major retailers found that shoplifting concerns are leveling off while online fraud, gift card scams, and cargo theft are climbing the priority list. Instacart is facing scrutiny over price differentials reportedly reaching 20 percent between its app and in-store pricing, adding pressure on retailers to tighten controls across checkout, promotions, and price experimentation systems.

Regulators are also taking a harder look at pricing technology. New Jersey has banned dynamic pricing outright and paused approval of new electronic shelf labels for a year while the state studies the technology, a signal that other statehouses may follow as algorithmic pricing draws more legal challenges nationwide.

Global

Hardware inflation crossed the Atlantic on Monday. Microsoft raised Xbox console prices across Europe and the United Kingdom, with the entry-level Series S climbing to 499.99 euros and 429.99 pounds and the flagship Series X reaching 799.99 euros and 669.99 pounds. The increases follow similar U.S. price hikes that took effect August 1 and reflect the same memory and component shortages that have been rippling through consumer electronics retail all summer. For retailers stocking gaming hardware, expect softer sell-through and more promotional pressure heading into the holiday planning cycle.

Read more

Amazon’s earnings beat set the tone for retail on Thursday, but the day’s real story was operational: drones over Orlando, shelf-scanning robots across the Great Plains, and a British department store finally getting a new anchor tenant after twenty-seven years. Here is what you need to know this morning….

Latest Retail Tech News

Domestic

Walmart and Wing officially switched on drone delivery in Greater Orlando on Wednesday, Wing’s first market in Florida and an expansion of what is now the largest retail drone network in the country. The service launched from two Supercenters, in Apopka and Clermont, covering more than 50,000 homes and businesses, with orders arriving in as fast as 30 minutes. Wing and Walmart plan to add stores in Ocoee and Haines City in the coming weeks as part of a broader push toward more than 270 Walmart locations by 2027. It is worth noting the last company to try drone delivery in Florida, DroneUp, shut the program down in 2024 after costs ran to roughly $30 per delivery against a $7 target. Wing has not disclosed comparable unit economics for Orlando, so the test now is whether density and route efficiency can make the math work where its predecessor could not.

Away from the sky, HomeBase USA, a home improvement chain operating across Texas, Wyoming, Kansas and Missouri, completed a chainwide rollout of Simbe Robotics’ Store Intelligence platform in under three months. The Tally shelf-scanning robot followed a pilot that Simbe says reduced pricing errors by 92 percent, cut controllable out-of-stocks by 58 percent and shortened annual physical inventories from three days to less than one. HomeBase leadership credited the fast rollout to building the technology into daily store routines rather than treating it as a bolt-on system, a lesson worth flagging for any retailer weighing a similar RFID or computer vision investment: adoption discipline matters as much as the hardware itself.

Global

In the UK, Sephora’s new London boutique is showcasing Beauty Scan, a phone-mounted lens that lets beauty advisors analyze a customer’s skin for oil and hydration levels and match foundation shades more precisely than app-only tools allow. Also across the pond, Morrisons began testing Instacart’s smart shopping trolleys in a Preston store, and LOOOK.AI partnered with Kiehl’s to roll out smart mirror installations across the UK, UAE, Singapore and Malaysia. Supply chain AI startup Freehand separately announced a $75 million seed round, with Meta and Dunkin’ listed among its early partners, a sign that investors still see room to fund retail-adjacent AI infrastructure even as broader tech capital spending draws scrutiny.

Read more

Hey Friends,

You have probably noticed a little different look today. Change is inevitable, but necessary for growth.

Wednesday brought a Federal Reserve decision, a wave of North American store news, and fresh evidence that retail media and agentic commerce keep pulling investment away from the old playbook. Here is what everyone is talking about from yesterday.

Retail Tech

Domestic

The agentic commerce buildout kept accelerating. ESW, an ecommerce platform that helps brands manage cross border storefronts, launched an agentic commerce tool built around Microsoft Copilot, letting shoppers complete secure checkout inside an AI powered shopping conversation rather than bouncing out to a retailer’s site. Lightspeed Commerce added an integration with Meta’s Conversions API so merchants can measure how much in-store revenue their social ads actually drive, a persistent blind spot for retailers who advertise online but sell offline. On the identity and fraud side, cloud and content delivery company Fastly joined Experian’s Agent Trust ecosystem, an effort to help enterprises verify that the AI agents showing up at checkout are legitimate and authorized to transact on a shopper’s behalf. And fulfillment technology firm Flowspace rolled out a Fulfillment Freedom Fund, offering brands up to fifty thousand dollars in transition support to offset the cost of switching fulfillment providers, a sign that logistics vendors are now competing on switching costs as much as on service.

Global

Walmart Connect used the day to launch a self-serve, auction-based onsite display advertising platform, expanding its retail media arm with real-time bidding that lets advertisers set spend dynamically rather than committing to fixed placements. The move keeps Walmart pace with the broader retail media land grab, and it landed the same day Vusion, the electronic shelf label and connected-store company, confirmed plans to publish first-half 2026 revenue amid its own push into in-store retail media monetization following a recent acquisition of digital signage network ISM. Meanwhile in China, new analysis argued that livestreamed “live commerce” has grown to roughly the same scale as all of US ecommerce, underscoring how far video-native shopping has outpaced Western retailers’ AI shopping pilots. Shein, by contrast, reported a swing to a loss after new US parcel tariffs hit its low cost cross border model, a reminder that the same trade policy reshaping US import costs is squeezing Chinese fast fashion players just as hard.

Store Openings and Closings

Domestic

REI confirmed its Landmark Center store in Boston will close for good on August 13, ending a 23 year run in the city as part of a broader round of closures that also touches New York City and New Jersey locations; online and in-store pickup orders needed to be placed by July 29, with Reading, Hingham and Framingham becoming the nearest remaining stores. Big Lots kept trimming its footprint under new owner Variety Wholesalers, with two more South Carolina locations, in West Columbia and Greenwood, slated to close by September 12, adding to closures already completed in Asheboro, North Carolina and Ephrata, Pennsylvania. The chain is down to 217 stores, and customer feedback on social media suggests Variety’s promised pivot to a higher end assortment has yet to show up on the sales floor. On the growth side, off-price stayed the sector’s brightest spot: Burlington Stores opened a dozen new locations this month, including grand openings in Salem, Oregon and Moscow, Idaho, and brought a new Georgia distribution center online to support its plan to add 110 net new stores in 2026.

Global

North of the border, Costco advanced plans for a new warehouse in Belleville, Ontario, its latest expansion along the Highway 401 corridor, with an opening targeted for fall 2027. Pop Mart is relocating out of its original pop-up inside Toronto’s CF Eaton Centre and into a much larger Level 1 store, nearly tripling its footprint at one of the country’s busiest malls, a strong signal of how quickly the collectible toy category has scaled in Canada. Swiss watchmaker Longines is opening its first Canadian boutique in downtown Vancouver’s luxury shopping district, and GUESS is expanding its Canadian assortment into home goods, children’s apparel and accessories starting late this year, with a fuller rollout planned by spring 2027.

Retail Stocks

Retail equities absorbed the Fed’s decision to hold the benchmark rate at 3.5 to 3.75 percent on Wednesday. The S&P 500 initially popped on the announcement, then reversed hard in the afternoon as 30-year Treasury yields spiked and investors digested Fed Chair Kevin Warsh’s continued commitment to fighting inflation. The index closed down 1.5 percent at 7,316.15, the Dow fell 2.2 percent, and the Nasdaq slid 1.7 percent, with markets now pricing better than even odds of a September rate hike.

Big box retail actually held up better than the broader market. Walmart rose about 1 percent to $114.22, Target gained 1.18 percent to $145.90, and Costco added 0.77 percent to $974.03, all finishing the session in the green even as most sectors sold off, a sign investors still see staples-heavy retailers as a relative safe harbor if rates stay higher for longer. Target remains the most rate-sensitive of the three given its all-US, discretionary-heavy mix, while Costco’s membership model continues to insulate it from the same pressure. Home Depot moved the other direction, dropping 2.14 percent to $303.85 as concerns about a cooling housing market weighed on the home improvement category. In apparel, lululemon closed at $120.32, up 2.11 percent and outpacing the S&P 500, even as analysts brace for a steep year over year earnings decline when the company next reports; the stock remains down roughly 48 percent over the past year on concerns about slowing North American demand and margin pressure. Nike continued to face negative sales trend commentary from Wall Street analysts heading into its next report.

Culturally Relevant Stories

Domestic

Back to school remains retail’s biggest live storyline heading into August. Fresh survey data show families now plan to spend $489 per child this year, up nearly 12 percent, with Walmart capturing an outsized share of that spending, close to 80 percent of shoppers in one recent survey, as price sensitive families consolidate trips to fewer retailers. Shopping intent has also spread out across the calendar, with September now edging out August and July as the single most popular month for planned purchases, a shift retailers are responding to by extending promotional windows rather than concentrating deals around a single back to school weekend.

Global

In Canada, Tim Hortons will launch a Harry Potter themed menu, merchandise line and in-store trivia contest starting August 12, the latest example of quick-service chains borrowing entertainment IP to drive a seasonal traffic spike outside the usual holiday windows. Also in Toronto, a 33 year old independent DVD store made news for thriving as younger shoppers rediscover physical media, a small but telling data point in the broader nostalgia commerce trend showing up across categories from vinyl to film cameras.