The developments illustrate two competing realities. Retailers are investing in new ways to engage shoppers, but not every technology investment will become a sustainable business. At the same time, established retailers are adapting familiar shopping formats to meet customers wherever they discover products.

Monday’s stock market rebounded, with all three major U.S. indexes advancing. Retail shares were mixed, however, with significant gains in apparel stocks offset by weakness in discount retail and department stores.

The priority is clear: invest in technology that improves customer outcomes, prepare operations for the holiday rush, and make value and convenience tangible to shoppers

United States: Instacart abandons its Caper smart-cart ambitions

Instacart announced on October 26 that it will wind down the team developing its Caper smart shopping carts, ending the initiative by the second quarter of 2027. The company expects to incur between $55 million and $80 million in pretax charges associated with the decision, including employee termination and contract-related expenses. Instacart plans to redirect the resources toward other strategic growth initiatives.

Caper carts combined cameras, sensors, weighing capabilities and onboard displays to help shoppers track products, apply discounts and complete purchases. The technology was intended to reduce checkout friction while creating opportunities for retailers to deliver personalized promotions and advertising inside stores.

The decision is significant because smart carts have been promoted as a way to bring digital commerce capabilities into physical grocery aisles. Yet the technology also requires retailers to manage hardware deployment, maintenance, software integration and customer adoption.

For retail executives, the lesson is not that smart carts have no future. It is that a compelling customer proposition does not automatically produce an attractive business model. Every new store technology must demonstrate that its benefits justify its total cost of ownership.

Retailers evaluating smart carts, computer vision or automated checkout should measure transaction speed, labor productivity, shrink, customer adoption and incremental sales. They should also consider whether simpler technologies can deliver similar benefits at a lower cost.

The larger question is whether retailers want to own the technology themselves or rely on platforms that can spread development costs across a broader customer base.

United States: DoorDash reportedly pursues a $17 billion acquisition of Instacart

Reuters reported on October 26 that DoorDash was in advanced talks to acquire Instacart in a transaction that could value the grocery delivery platform at approximately $17 billion. The report cited a source familiar with the matter. An agreement could be reached as early as Wednesday, although completion was not guaranteed. Discussions between Instacart and Uber were reportedly no longer active.

The potential combination would bring together Instacart’s grocery marketplace and retailer relationships with DoorDash’s delivery network and customer base. Both companies have expanded beyond their original business models as delivery providers seek additional sources of growth.

For retailers, the implications extend beyond food delivery. Third-party platforms increasingly influence how consumers discover products, place orders and receive purchases. A stronger combined platform could become a more significant intermediary between retailers and their customers.

That creates both opportunity and risk. Delivery partnerships can extend a retailer’s reach without requiring it to build an entirely independent fulfillment network. However, greater dependence on a third party can reduce control over customer relationships, transaction economics and the shopping experience.

Retailers should evaluate these partnerships based on incremental demand, fulfillment costs, customer retention and the degree of access they retain to transaction data. If the proposed acquisition proceeds, the resulting platform’s commercial terms and retailer relationships will deserve close attention.

United States: Walmart extends its holiday shopping calendar

Walmart announced on October 26 that its holiday promotional events will run from November 12 through December 2. The schedule includes an early Black Friday event from November 12 to 15, a Black Friday event from November 23 to 29, and Cyber Monday deals from November 30 through December 2. The company is also expanding membership benefits through a combined Walmart+ and Sam’s Club Plus offering priced at $120 annually.

The announcement combines promotions, membership economics and entertainment-led marketing. Walmart’s new campaign, A Who Knew Carol, features characters from The Muppets alongside actors Walton Goggins and Stephanie Beatriz, using humor and recognizable entertainment properties to highlight gift discovery and affordability.

The longer promotional calendar reflects the continuing competition for holiday spending. Rather than concentrating every discount into a single shopping weekend, retailers are spreading offers across multiple events to attract customers at different points in their purchasing journeys.

For executives, the challenge is balancing traffic generation with margin protection. Extended promotions can increase customer engagement, but they can also train shoppers to delay purchases until discounts appear.

The most effective strategy connects promotions to specific commercial objectives, including customer acquisition, inventory clearance, membership growth and increased basket size. Retailers need to know which offers generate genuinely incremental demand rather than simply shift purchases from one date to another.

Store Openings and Closings

United States: Holiday operating calendars become an immediate planning priority

Monday’s verified retail reporting produced limited major new permanent store-opening or closure announcements. The more immediate operational issue is holiday readiness, particularly as retailers finalize promotional schedules, staffing and store execution plans.

Walmart’s latest holiday announcement establishes a three-event promotional calendar spanning November 12 through December 2. Separately, the company has maintained its established policy of closing physical stores on Thanksgiving and Christmas, giving associates those holidays off. Those closures are not a new policy announcement, but they remain important dates for retailers coordinating inventory, labor and fulfillment.

The operational challenge is that holiday demand rarely arrives evenly across channels. A promotional event can generate a sudden increase in online orders, store traffic, pickup requests and customer-service contacts. Retailers need to ensure that inventory availability, staffing and fulfillment capacity can absorb those peaks without undermining service.

For store operations leaders, this is the time to validate labor schedules, confirm promotional inventory, test pickup and delivery workflows, and identify potential bottlenecks before volume increases.

The best holiday plans account for more than sales forecasts. They establish clear operating thresholds, contingency plans and ownership for resolving problems when demand exceeds expectations.

Global: Store portfolio announcements remain limited

No additional major international store-opening or closure announcement published on October 26 met the verification criteria for this edition.

That makes portfolio discipline an important ongoing consideration rather than a new headline. Retailers operating across multiple markets must continue to assess the contribution of individual locations, the cost of maintaining underperforming stores and the role physical sites play in supporting digital commerce.

A store can create value through sales, customer acquisition, product discovery, returns and fulfillment. Those contributions should be evaluated together when executives make decisions about opening, renovating or closing locations.

Retail Stocks: Monday’s Market Performance

United States: Major indexes rebound as retail shares deliver mixed results

U.S. stocks advanced on Monday, October 26. The S&P 500 gained 0.70% to close at 7,676.77, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.28% to 52,361.58, and the Nasdaq Composite increased 0.82% to 26,169.38. The Russell 2000 added 0.38% to 2,786.42. Investors were looking ahead to corporate earnings and central-bank decisions later in the week.

Among the largest retailers, Walmart (WMT) rose 0.33% to $120.29, Amazon (AMZN) gained 0.44% to $249.09, and Costco (COST) advanced 0.18% to $1,005.16. Target (TGT) moved in the opposite direction, falling 2.77% to $148.53. Home Depot (HD) slipped 0.14% to $319.38, while Lowe’s (LOW) declined 0.23% to $198.22.

Off-price and discount retailers were mixed. TJX Companies (TJX) fell 0.94% to $143.70, Ross Stores (ROST) rose 2.10% to $234.11, and Burlington Stores (BURL) declined 2.57% to $241.26. Dollar General (DG) dropped 3.22% to $128.42, while Dollar Tree (DLTR) lost 0.31% to $124.92. Grocery retailers were comparatively steady: Kroger (KR) closed unchanged at $66.77, while Albertsons (ACI) gained 0.14% to $13.98.

Specialty retail produced some of the session’s most notable moves. Best Buy (BBY) declined 1.92% to $97.95, Ulta Beauty (ULTA) edged up 0.14% to $625.33, and DICK’S Sporting Goods (DKS) slipped 0.13% to $144.48. Academy Sports + Outdoors (ASO) fell 1.19% to $59.61. Nike (NKE) gained 1.64% to $37.91, while Lululemon (LULU) rose 3.94% to $102.91. Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF) advanced 5.72% to $164.73, making it one of the strongest performers in the tracked group. Gap (GAP) slipped 0.27% to $22.26, Macy’s (M) fell 2.12% to $23.59, and Williams-Sonoma (WSM) declined 0.99% to $249.96.

Nordstrom’s former ticker, JWN, is not included because the company is no longer publicly traded.

The standout performers were Abercrombie & Fitch, Lululemon and Ross Stores. Target, Dollar General and Burlington were among the weaker names. The results illustrate how differently investors can view retailers even when they operate in broadly similar consumer environments.

For retail executives, the daily share-price movement is a useful sentiment indicator, but it is not a substitute for operating data. Comparable-store sales, customer traffic, average transaction value, inventory productivity and gross margin remain more direct measures of business performance.

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It’s been a minute…..how have we been? We are back with a special rundown today and it’s on the house. Enjoy.

Retail entered the final stretch of October facing a familiar challenge: capturing holiday demand while consumers remain sensitive to prices and retailers prepare for the most operationally demanding period of the year. The week’s biggest stories centered on Amazon’s holiday hiring plans, Walmart’s expanding marketplace logistics network, new applications for artificial intelligence in physical stores, and signs that consumer spending remains positive but uneven.

The stock market offered a mixed picture. Major retailers moved in different directions, reinforcing a central theme for investors: retail is not trading as one unified sector. Companies positioned around value, digital commerce, home improvement and differentiated shopping experiences face different opportunities and risks as the holiday season approaches.

One important distinction: the figures below cover the five trading sessions from Monday, October 19, through Friday, October 23. Stock prices are reported in U.S. dollars, and weekly returns compare Monday’s opening price with Friday’s closing price where historical data is available. This measures the change across the trading week, not the return from the previous Friday’s close.

The retail stock market: Winners and losers diverge

The clearest takeaway from the week’s trading was the divergence among major retail names. Amazon ended the week below its Monday opening price, while Walmart and Home Depot finished above theirs. The different outcomes reflect individual stock performance, not necessarily changes in the underlying businesses during those five sessions.

Amazon’s performance deserves particular attention because the company was simultaneously preparing for the holiday shopping surge and approaching its next quarterly earnings report, scheduled for October 29. The shares closed at $248.00 on Friday, down from Monday’s $255.25 opening price. The weekly movement does not, by itself, establish that investors were reacting negatively to Amazon’s holiday plans. Broader technology-market conditions, expectations for earnings and the company’s substantial investment requirements are separate factors that investors may consider.

Walmart took a different path. Its shares opened at $118.41 on Monday and closed at $119.89 on Friday, a gain of approximately 1.25% across the week. The stock experienced volatility along the way, falling to $117.85 at Tuesday’s close before recovering. Walmart’s expanding digital marketplace and fulfillment capabilities remain important strategic considerations, although the weekly price movement cannot be attributed to any single announcement.

Home Depot was the strongest performer of these three stocks on this particular opening-to-closing measure. It opened at $306.55 on Monday and finished Friday at $319.83, up approximately 4.33%. Its largest daily gain in the available data came Thursday, when the stock rose 4.33% from the previous close to $327.73, before giving back some ground on Friday. The move illustrates why a weekly snapshot can conceal meaningful daily swings.

Friday was a weaker session for several major retailers. Target fell 3.38% to $152.76, while Amazon declined 0.95%, Walmart fell 1.02%, and Costco dropped 1.46%. Target underperformed those three peers on the day. These figures are Friday’s daily changes, not the full week’s returns, and should not be interpreted as evidence of a broader change in each company’s business outlook.

The broader market also moved unevenly during the week. U.S. stocks advanced Wednesday, with the S&P 500 rising 0.6%, the Dow gaining 0.7% and the Nasdaq increasing 1.1%. Thursday brought renewed pressure, particularly for technology shares, amid geopolitical concerns and rising oil prices. By Friday, the S&P 500 had fallen 0.52% for the session. For retailers, the implication is straightforward: company-specific developments and broader market sentiment both matter, and a single day’s movement rarely tells the whole story.

The consumer: Sales are growing, but the headline needs context

The most important economic backdrop for retail remains the gap between nominal sales growth and the purchasing power behind it. Data released by the U.S. Census Bureau on October 15 showed that retail and food-services sales reached an estimated $745.0 billion in September, up 0.8% from August and 6.3% from a year earlier. Sales for July through September were 5.5% higher than the same period a year earlier. These figures are not adjusted for price changes, meaning the reported growth includes the effect of inflation.

Reuters reported that September's increase exceeded economists' expectations for a 0.3% rise. However, higher gasoline prices were an important contributor. When fuel costs rise, total retail sales can increase even if households have less discretionary money available for apparel, electronics, home goods and other purchases. A strong headline sales number therefore does not necessarily mean consumers are becoming more comfortable spending.

For retailers, this distinction matters heading into November and December. Consumers may continue to spend, but remain highly selective about where their money goes. Value-oriented propositions, competitive promotions, loyalty programs and convenient fulfillment can help retailers win a greater share of existing demand. At the same time, discounting too aggressively can erode margins, particularly when labor, transportation and merchandise costs remain under pressure.

The National Retail Federation’s October 15 forecast projected that U.S. holiday sales would grow 4.2% in 2026. That outlook points to a potentially strong holiday season, but it is a forecast rather than a guarantee. Retailers will still need to balance inventory commitments and staffing against actual consumer demand as the season progresses.

Amazon raises the stakes for holiday fulfillment

One of the week’s biggest retail announcements came from Amazon, which said it plans to hire more than 300,000 seasonal, part-time and full-time workers across its U.S. operations for the holiday season. The company said this represented a 20% increase from the previous year. Seasonal employees are expected to earn an average of $20 per hour, while qualifying seasonal workers will gain access to healthcare coverage beginning January 1, 2027, subject to the company’s eligibility requirements.

The scale of the hiring plan underscores how much operational capacity matters during the holiday rush. Retailers must coordinate inbound inventory, fulfillment centers, transportation, customer service and last-mile delivery while maintaining delivery promises. Labor availability and productivity can have a direct impact on whether orders reach customers on time.

The announcement also highlights the continuing competition between digital and physical retail. Amazon is adding capacity across its operations network, while store-based retailers are working to make their own locations more useful for online fulfillment, returns and pickup. The competitive question is no longer simply which retailer offers the lowest price. It is also which retailer can provide the right product, with reliable availability, at the promised time and at an acceptable cost to serve.

For retail technology providers, this creates an important opportunity. Inventory visibility, warehouse mobility, scanning, network reliability and workforce applications all become more consequential when order volumes surge. Technology failures that are manageable during a normal week can become expensive bottlenecks during peak season.

Walmart expands marketplace shipping options

Walmart made another move to strengthen its digital commerce infrastructure. Reporting published by Supply Chain Dive on October 19 detailed the addition of eight parcel carriers to Walmart Marketplace’s approved list for seller-fulfilled orders. The additions included DoorDash, UniUni, SpeedX, Exelot, SwiftX, TForce Final Mile, Gofo and OSM Worldwide. Metropolitan Warehouse & Delivery was also added for freight shipments.

The change gives marketplace sellers more flexibility in selecting delivery providers when they manage their own shipping. Walmart continues to identify UPS, FedEx and the U.S. Postal Service among its preferred carriers, so the expansion is best understood as an extension of the existing network rather than a wholesale replacement of traditional parcel providers.

The strategic context is Walmart’s growing online business. According to figures cited by Supply Chain Dive from Walmart’s second-quarter earnings discussion, U.S. e-commerce accounted for more than 23% of the company’s domestic sales mix, while marketplace net sales grew by more than 50% year over year in the quarter. Nearly half of marketplace business flowed through Walmart Fulfillment Services, according to the same reporting.

Why does this matter? Marketplaces become more attractive when sellers can reach customers efficiently and shoppers can receive orders reliably. More delivery options may help sellers address differences in geography, shipment size, cost and service requirements. However, additional carriers also create integration and performance-management requirements. Tracking accuracy, service consistency and exception handling remain essential.

For retailers building omnichannel businesses, logistics flexibility must be supported by strong systems. Order management, inventory accuracy, carrier integrations and visibility across fulfillment channels become increasingly important as the business grows. Walmart’s move illustrates that marketplace competition increasingly depends on the infrastructure supporting the transaction, not simply the digital storefront.

Artificial intelligence moves closer to the store floor

Artificial intelligence remained another important retail technology theme. During the week, coverage highlighted SenseMart OS, a retail operating system developed by SenseTime’s smart retail business, which is designed to coordinate robots, retail equipment and store operations. The platform was also covered in earlier reporting, including a September 29 article from TechNode.

The broader development is worth watching because retail AI is moving beyond customer-facing chatbots and product recommendations. Physical retail presents a more complex challenge: systems must interact with real environments, products, equipment and operating processes. Applications can include coordinating robotic tasks, supporting order fulfillment and connecting devices with store-level workflows.

The commercial question is whether these systems can produce measurable improvements in productivity, availability, service levels or operating costs. A compelling demonstration is not the same as a proven business case. Retailers evaluating these technologies should examine deployment costs, reliability, integration requirements, maintenance and the extent to which solutions can be replicated across locations.

The opportunity is particularly relevant for large store networks, where even modest improvements in routine processes may create meaningful aggregate benefits. Yet the path from pilot to enterprise deployment requires more than an AI model. It requires dependable connectivity, standardized interfaces, operational data and clear accountability when automated processes fail.

For retail technology leaders, the practical takeaway is to evaluate AI against specific operational problems rather than pursuing it as a standalone objective. Inventory exceptions, repetitive workflows, labor-intensive tasks and fulfillment bottlenecks are better starting points than vague ambitions to make a store “AI-powered.”

Apple’s foldable iPhone enters the market

Consumer electronics also delivered a notable story. Reuters reported on October 22 that Apple’s first folding phone, the iPhone Duo, was arriving in stores around the world, with a price of approximately $2,000. The report described a product entering the market with a high price tag and less fanfare than some previous major product launches.

For retailers, premium electronics launches are important for more than their immediate sales potential. They can influence store traffic, product demonstrations, accessory attachment, financing conversations and the customer experience across physical and digital channels. New product formats can also create additional requirements for merchandising, staff training and inventory planning.

The high price point makes the launch particularly relevant in a market where shoppers are increasingly selective. Premium products can still attract demand, but retailers need to understand which customers are willing to pay for differentiated features and which will wait for lower prices or more established product generations.

The broader lesson is that innovation does not eliminate the need for sound retail execution. Product availability, clear product information, knowledgeable associates and reliable fulfillment remain fundamental to converting interest into sales.

What retail leaders should watch next

The week leaves retail executives with three immediate priorities.

First, holiday readiness is becoming a capacity and execution challenge. Amazon’s hiring plans and Walmart’s shipping expansion demonstrate the importance of matching labor and logistics capacity to anticipated demand. Retailers should stress-test inventory accuracy, fulfillment workflows, store connectivity and exception-management processes before peak volumes arrive.

Second, sales growth should be interpreted alongside consumer purchasing power. September’s 0.8% monthly increase in retail sales is encouraging, but higher gasoline prices and the absence of inflation adjustment mean the headline figure does not tell the entire story. Retailers should monitor category-level performance, promotional dependence, average transaction values and unit volumes rather than relying on revenue growth alone.

Third, AI and automation need measurable operating objectives. The expansion of systems designed to coordinate robots and store operations points toward a future in which intelligent automation becomes more integrated with physical retail. But adoption should follow a clear business case, with baseline metrics and a realistic assessment of integration and support requirements.

For investors, the coming week brings another important catalyst: Amazon’s scheduled October 29 earnings report. Results and management commentary should offer additional insight into e-commerce demand, operating performance and investment priorities. The key is to distinguish confirmed financial results from expectations ahead of the announcement.

For the retail industry, the message is consistent. Demand remains present, but success will depend on how effectively businesses convert that demand into profitable transactions. The winners are likely to be those that combine compelling value with dependable execution, using technology to improve the economics and reliability of the customer experience.

Retail This Week: Strong Headline Sales, Shaky Foundations

A hot September sales number, a cautious holiday outlook, and fresh cuts at the country’s biggest grocer defined the week.

Sales beat forecasts, but gas did the heavy lifting

US retail sales rose 0.8% in September, topping economists’ consensus by 0.5 percentage points. The details are less cheerful. Excluding gas stations, sales rose just 0.2%. Analysts also flagged fading momentum: the three-month annualized growth rate is running at 2.4%, a loss of steam heading into the holidays.

Inflation is part of the story. Wholesale prices jumped in September to their highest level in over four years, the second hotter-than-expected inflation reading of the week. One analysis argued that after adjusting for price changes, the volume of retail sales actually fell 0.1% in the month the headline beat.

Holiday forecasts stay upbeat, with caveats

The National Retail Federation expects holiday sales growth to accelerate to 4.2% this year, betting consumers stay resilient. The same Reuters report noted that Walmart, Kohl’s and American Eagle have all flagged pressure on consumer spending.

Deloitte’s survey adds texture. Average household holiday spending could rise 4% to $1,654, driven by Gen Z and millennial shoppers, with retail spending up 10% while spending on holiday activities falls 4%. Economists also say inflation inflates the forecast. Another report noted that higher prices account for about half of the anticipated growth, and higher-income shoppers fuel much of the spending.

Kroger cuts corporate jobs

Kroger revealed plans to eliminate roughly 3,000 corporate positions over the next three years. The company says the changes will let it invest more in store employees and lower prices for customers. The move follows a year of closures, as the chain shutters around 60 underperforming stores by the end of 2026.

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I took a little time off of the newsletter to prioritize some other things but we are back more energized than ever. Today’s edition is on the house

Retailers are moving deeper into the holiday season with two competing priorities: capturing demand earlier and operating more efficiently while consumers remain selective about spending. Weekend coverage highlighted the growing importance of AI in pricing and shopping discovery, continued changes to physical store portfolios, and a seasonal hiring outlook that points toward a leaner workforce model.

Let’s get into it…….

Latest Retail Tech News

United States: AI-powered personalization creates a new pricing challenge

A weekend report from CNBC examined concerns that retailers using AI and increasingly detailed customer data could expand personalized pricing practices. AI can help merchants understand shopping behavior, tailor promotions and improve recommendations. However, the same capabilities raise questions about how individual prices and offers are determined, particularly when customers cannot easily understand why they are receiving different deals.

For retail leaders, this is a commercial opportunity with a customer-trust risk attached. More relevant promotions can improve conversion and customer retention, but personalization becomes harder to defend when shoppers perceive that pricing is opaque or unfair. Retailers should establish clear governance around customer data, promotional eligibility and the use of predictive models. The objective is not simply to maximize what an individual customer might pay. It is to build a shopping experience that customers trust enough to revisit.

Amazon makes another round of corporate workforce reductions. Amazon confirmed a new round of job cuts on October 7, with the news reported by Reuters on October 8. Fewer than 1,000 white-collar employees were affected, primarily within the Stores division responsible for its main e-commerce platform. Employees in the United States, India, and the United Kingdom were among those affected. The reductions follow a larger restructuring that began the previous year and included approximately 30,000 job cuts. The timing, during Amazon's Prime Big Deal Days promotion, highlights the distinction between maintaining a major customer-facing operation and adjusting the organization supporting it. For retailers, the continuing question is how to simplify management structures and improve productivity while preserving the merchandising, customer service, and marketplace capabilities required to compete.

Sainsbury's brings AI-powered shopping lists into the grocery journey. British grocer Sainsbury's introduced SmartLists in its mobile app on October 8, adding artificial intelligence to a routine activity that sits at the center of grocery shopping: building a basket. Customers can create lists by typing or photographing the items they need, with the system matching requests to Sainsbury's products and applicable Nectar Prices. The feature also supports online basket creation, while an in-store Product Finder helps shoppers locate products on shelves. The updated app brings together online ordering, rapid delivery, SmartLists, in-store SmartShop, and Nectar loyalty services. The strategic significance is the connection between digital planning and physical execution. Rather than treating the app as a separate sales channel, Sainsbury's is using it to influence product discovery, basket construction, loyalty engagement, and the in-store experience. Retailers pursuing similar strategies will need accurate product data, dependable inventory information, and a seamless connection between digital and store operations.

Uniqlo's growth increasingly depends on Western consumers. Fast Retailing, the Japanese parent of Uniqlo, reported a 32% increase in annual operating profit to 743.13 billion yen for the fiscal year ended August 31, according to results published October 8. Combined revenue from North America and Europe reached 877.6 billion yen, exceeding the 724 billion yen generated in Greater China for the first time. The shift highlights changing regional demand and the importance of building a global brand without depending too heavily on a single market. For retailers, the lesson is to align expansion, merchandise, and store formats with where demand is developing, rather than relying exclusively on historical growth markets.

World Market reaches 250 stores. Specialty retailer World Market opened its 250th store in West Jordan, Utah, at the Jordan Landing shopping center, according to a report published October 8. The location measures 18,362 square feet. The opening follows a new store in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, and brings World Market closer to the 259 locations it operated before its acquisition by Bed Bath & Beyond. The milestone is notable because it demonstrates renewed physical expansion for a specialty retailer competing in a market where store closures and portfolio rationalization remain common. World Market's growth also underscores the continuing role of physical stores in categories where product discovery, visual merchandising, and browsing can influence purchasing decisions. The strategic test will be whether new locations generate sufficient demand and profitability to justify their occupancy and operating costs. Store count alone is not the objective; productive stores are.

Subway targets a larger footprint across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Subway is planning a significant expansion across its EMEA business, aiming to approach 10,000 locations over the next five years. The strategy, reported on October 8, also includes changes to menus and ordering designed to capture more eating occasions. These include breakfast offerings, evening food, self-service kiosks, and mobile app ordering. The company is also testing an evening concept in the Netherlands. The plan reflects a familiar challenge for restaurant operators: growth increasingly depends on making existing real estate productive across more dayparts, not simply opening more locations. Menu relevance, convenient ordering, and local demand will determine whether the additional footprint translates into sustainable sales. For retail and restaurant executives, Subway's approach reinforces the importance of evaluating store expansion alongside customer frequency, labor productivity, and the economics of each operating format.

Nordstrom Rack continues its expansion. Nordstrom’s off-price business is expanding, with Nordstrom Rack planning 18 store openings across 15 states by October 29, according to weekend reporting. The openings are part of a broader strategy to increase the brand’s physical presence and reach shoppers seeking discounted merchandise.

Off-price retail has an attractive proposition when consumers are looking for branded products at lower prices. The model depends on sourcing merchandise effectively, maintaining compelling assortments and creating a sense of discovery without compromising inventory discipline.

The expansion also reflects the continuing importance of format diversification. Full-price and off-price retail can serve different shopping occasions and customer budgets, allowing retailers to address demand across a wider range of price points.

Global: Physical retail expansion remains selective

The weekend reporting reviewed for this edition did not establish a comparably strong new international chain-opening or closure announcement that could be independently verified. Rather than repeat earlier-week stories, the international perspective is better captured through changes in shopping culture and the relationship between consumers, brands and physical retail.

For global retailers, the broader strategic question remains whether stores can offer something beyond a transaction. Distinctive merchandise, experiential environments and convenient services can help physical locations compete with digital channels, but they must be supported by sound location economics.

True Food Kitchen's restructuring leaves a smaller restaurant portfolio. Reporting published October 8 detailed the wellness-focused restaurant chain's Chapter 11 proceedings and the closure of 12 locations. The closures took effect October 4, leaving 34 restaurants operating across 14 states while the company pursues a court-supervised sale process. The restructuring also includes debtor-in-possession financing intended to support operations during the process. The remaining locations are expected to continue operating during the proceedings. For restaurant operators, the situation illustrates the distinction between a recognizable brand proposition and a financially sustainable operating model. A concept can have a differentiated menu and a loyal following yet still face challenges from its cost structure, location economics, and capital requirements. The outcome will depend on whether the remaining portfolio can attract a buyer with the resources and operating plan to support the business over the long term.

Halloween trends show how entertainment culture influences retail demand. Spirit Halloween has opened approximately 1,500 temporary stores nationwide, frequently occupying vacant retail locations. According to Axios reporting published October 8, popular costume themes this year include characters from Toy Story, K-Pop Demon Hunters, superheroes, Greek mythology, and Y2K-inspired looks. The mix illustrates how entertainment franchises, nostalgia, and social trends translate into seasonal merchandise demand. For retailers, Halloween is a reminder that cultural relevance can create short-lived but commercially valuable opportunities. Merchandising decisions must anticipate which trends will resonate, while inventory and temporary store strategies must be flexible enough to respond to changing demand. The ability to connect cultural moments with product availability remains an important advantage in seasonal retail.

Tesco gains after raising its profit outlook. Shares in British grocery retailer Tesco rose 4% on October 8 after the company raised the lower end of its full-year adjusted operating profit forecast. First-half adjusted operating profit increased 6.5% to £1.783 billion, while sales excluding VAT and fuel rose 2% to £33.8 billion. Tesco also expanded its share buyback program by £200 million, bringing the total to £950 million. Its revised full-year profit outlook is £3.15 billion to £3.30 billion. The results suggest that value positioning and grocery demand remain important sources of resilience, even as retailers contend with uneven consumer confidence and operating cost pressures. Tesco's performance also offers a useful reminder that investors respond to expectations as well as reported results: raising the forecast's lower boundary helped support the shares.

Retail Stocks: Friday’s Market Performance

Friday, October 9, was the most recent completed U.S. stock-market session before Monday morning’s newsletter. The major indexes finished higher, with the S&P 500 rising 0.59% to 7,811.54, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gaining 0.83% to 51,654.95, and the Nasdaq Composite advancing 0.64% to 27,366.17.

United States: Performance across the retail watchlist

Among the largest retailers, Walmart (WMT) rose 0.71% to $111.35, while Amazon (AMZN) advanced 3.29% to $262.43. Costco (COST) slipped 0.11% to $946.92, and Target (TGT) declined 0.72% to $153.64. Home improvement stocks were weaker. The Home Depot (HD) fell 1.60% to $290.74, and Lowe's (LOW) declined 1.51% to $186.00. Within off-price retail, TJX Companies (TJX) edged up 0.01% to $138.76, Ross Stores (ROST) fell 1.24% to $222.41, and Burlington Stores (BURL) gained 0.05% to $276.97.

The dollar-store segment was mixed. Dollar General (DG) climbed 2.38% to $127.23, while Dollar Tree (DLTR) increased 0.02% to $118.64. Grocery stocks diverged: Kroger (KR) gained 0.37% to $61.64, while Albertsons (ACI) declined 1.22% to $12.19.

In specialty retail, Best Buy (BBY) fell 1.57% to $87.01, while Ulta Beauty (ULTA) gained 1.09% to $570.37. DICK'S Sporting Goods (DKS) advanced 1.50% to $136.65, and Academy Sports + Outdoors (ASO) rose 1.38% to $53.49.

Apparel stocks were mixed. Nike (NKE) slipped 0.09% to $34.71, while Lululemon (LULU) advanced 1.96% to $94.50. Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF) gained 0.83% to $142.58, while Gap Inc. (GAP) fell 0.56% to $23.23.

Global: Halloween becomes a longer retail season

A Sunday report from The Guardian examined the emergence of what it described as “Halloweenmas,” a broader seasonal period in which Halloween-themed decorations, parties and gifts extend beyond the traditional single-night celebration. The trend reflects how retailers and consumers are stretching seasonal occasions into longer shopping and entertainment windows.

Holiday hiring is becoming more targeted

Retail’s seasonal hiring outlook is weakening relative to historical norms. Business Insider reported on October 11 that Challenger, Gray & Christmas projected approximately 450,000 seasonal retail jobs for 2026, down from 461,000 in 2025 and the lowest level in nearly two decades. Spirit Halloween and Michaels had announced plans to hire 52,000 and 10,000 seasonal workers, respectively. Walmart said it would maintain its approach from the prior year, while Target planned to rely on its on-demand workforce of approximately 43,000 employees and leave additional hiring decisions to local managers.

The change reflects a more deliberate approach to labor planning. Retailers are hiring earlier, relying more heavily on existing employees and tailoring seasonal staffing to local requirements. Automation and improved forecasting may also reduce the need for some repetitive tasks, although stores still require sufficient staffing to manage traffic, replenishment and customer service.

The Big Story: Costco Closes Fiscal 2026 with a Beat, and Digital Keeps Climbing

Costco capped its fiscal year with fourth quarter results that topped expectations on both lines. The company reported net income of $2.998 billion, or $6.75 per diluted share, for the 16-week fourth quarter, up from $2.610 billion, or $5.87 per share, a year earlier, beating the $6.48 to $6.55 consensus range analysts had modeled. Revenue reached $95.7 billion against an estimate of roughly $94.85 billion.

Two numbers matter more than the headline beat. First, comparable sales growth came in at 9.4% year over year, or 6.7% adjusted for gas and FX, with management noting the later timing of Labor Day contributed to some August softness. Second, and this is the one I’d flag for anyone in retail tech or supply chain, digitally enabled comparable sales rose 20.9% for the full fiscal year and 19.5% in the quarter, with adjusted increases of 20.7% and 19.8% respectively. Costco isn’t a digital-first retailer by any stretch, so growth at that clip inside a warehouse club model says something about how deeply omnichannel fulfillment has embedded itself even in categories built around bulk, in-person shopping. That’s reinforced by the delivery expansion moves both Costco and its rivals made this month: Costco expanded its Uber Eats delivery partnership to 47 states, on top of a nationwide DoorDash rollout that landed just before this earnings report.

Worth noting for anyone tracking margin quality: $184 million of that quarterly net income came from IEEPA tariff refunds, a detail that ties directly into the week’s second big theme.

Tariffs Are Quietly Becoming an Earnings Line Item

Costco wasn’t the only retailer whose results got a tariff-refund lift this week. AutoZone’s Q4 print showed the same pattern, with tariff refunds boosting gross margin by 145 basis points even as sales came in slightly below estimates. That’s a shift worth sitting with: tariff policy has moved from a cost-side risk retailers hedge against to something that’s now directly, and unpredictably, showing up as a reported earnings benefit.

The underlying trade picture stayed unsettled all week. A Senate-passed sanctions bill that would hand the administration power to impose tariffs up to 100% on countries including India, China, and Turkey headed to the House floor, and Canada’s retaliatory tariffs, up to 50% on roughly $27.6 billion of US goods spanning steel, dairy, appliances, and electronics, remained in effect in response to US Section 338 duties on Canadian imports. For anyone building sourcing or pricing models right now, the honest read is that the ground is still moving, and refund timing has become almost as important a planning variable as the tariffs themselves.

Earnings Season Is Just Getting Started

Retail’s Q3 earnings picture is turning out to be a story of haves and have-nots. LSEG’s retail scorecard shows five of ten consumer-related sectors have turned negative, with Leisure Products heading for 31.6% earnings growth while Household Durables faces an expected 7.1% decline. Nike reports next week, and the setup is rough: analysts expect earnings to decline 10.6% and revenue to fall 3.3%, as the company navigates softer demand and a more promotional environment. Toy retailers are heading into their own reports with a similarly mixed setup, with demand concentrated in collectibles and trading cards while freight and input costs, along with order shifts from Q3 into Q4, weigh on the broader category.

What Might Be Slipping Through the Cracks

Two things deserve more attention than they’re getting:

Restaurant distress is bleeding into retail’s broader read on consumer health. A Wendy’s franchisee filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection this week, a smaller headline next to Costco’s blowout quarter, but it’s a data point in the same story: value-conscious consumers are propping up warehouse clubs and discounters while squeezing operators further down the food chain.

Order-shift dynamics are becoming a real supply chain signal. Toy retailers pulling orders forward from Q4 into Q3 (or the reverse, depending on the company) isn’t just a merchandising decision anymore, it’s a hedge against tariff timing and freight cost volatility. That’s the kind of operational detail that doesn’t make headline roundups but matters enormously to anyone running inventory, RFID-enabled tracking, or fulfillment systems right now.

The Takeaway

Three forces are shaping retail this week: a resilient but bifurcated consumer (strong at Costco, weak at Wendy’s franchisees and household durables), tariff refunds that are now material enough to move reported earnings, and continued proof that digital and delivery infrastructure investment is paying off even for retailers, like Costco, that built their model on the opposite premise. If there’s one thing to watch into next week, it’s Nike’s report on Tuesday. A soft print there would confirm that the promotional pressure hitting apparel and footwear is broader than just one brand’s execution problem.

Latest Retail Tech News

Domestic: Retailers are racing to adopt agentic AI faster than they can govern it. A report from security firm Netskope published this week found that retail’s AI usage has surged over the past year, and while some companies are tightening oversight of these tools, a lot of organizations still cannot see what their AI agents are actually doing with sensitive data. Netskope’s recommendations boil down to the basics: know what tools employees are using, and limit how much sensitive data those tools can touch. For executives building AI into merchandising, pricing, or customer service workflows, this is a good nudge to check whether your governance has kept pace with your ambition.

Global: Tapestry, the parent of Coach and Kate Spade, is putting its handbags where the shoppers already are. The company announced that Coach and Kate Spade products are now purchasable directly inside Google’s Gemini app and AI Mode search experience, making Tapestry one of the more visible fashion names to plug into Google’s AI shopping ecosystem. It is a small move on its face, but it signals where the next real estate battle in retail is headed: not just your website and app, but whatever AI assistant your customer happens to be chatting with. Expect more luxury and specialty brands to follow Tapestry’s lead over the next few quarters, since being discoverable inside a conversational AI experience is quickly becoming as important as showing up in a traditional search result.

Taken together, these two stories capture the split screen retail leaders are living in right now. On one hand, AI tools are becoming genuinely useful sales and discovery channels. On the other, the same tools are spreading through organizations faster than security and data governance teams can track them. Both trends deserve a seat at the same strategy table.

Store Openings and Closings

Domestic: Starbucks announced Thursday it is closing about 250 cafes across North America, roughly 1 percent of its 18,000-location footprint. The company said the affected stores either were not delivering the customer and partner experience it wants or were not financially viable. This is the second round of store trims under CEO Brian Niccol in his two-year turnaround effort, following a similar closure wave and layoffs about a year ago as part of a $1 billion restructuring push. On the flip side, Starbucks still expects 440 net new cafes in fiscal 2026, though that is down from its earlier outlook of 600 to 650, with essentially all of that growth coming from international markets rather than North America. The read here is not that Starbucks is shrinking. It is pruning underperformers at home while planting new flags abroad.

Global: In Poland, German discount chain TEDi began rebranding the 74 Woolworth stores it acquired, with the first converted location opening its doors in Gdansk. It is part of a broader pattern of consolidation playing out across European discount retail this year, as chains snap up struggling banners and relaunch them under stronger operating models. Elsewhere on the continent, grocery and specialty operators continue to expand aggressively into Southeast Europe, with acquisitions and loyalty program investments signaling that European discount and grocery consolidation still has plenty of runway left. Worth watching if you track how quickly discount formats are expanding share across Central and Eastern Europe.

The domestic and global pictures are telling slightly different stories this week. In the US, mature chains like Starbucks are optimizing an already dense footprint, closing the weakest performers while growth shifts overseas. In Europe, growth is coming from consolidation, with stronger operators absorbing distressed banners and relaunching them at scale. Different strategies, same underlying goal: fewer, better-performing doors.

Retail Stocks

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Latest Retail Tech News

Domestic

The agentic AI arms race kept accelerating this weekend. Microsoft used the days around the weekend to detail how its agentic AI robots and vision-enabled agents are already changing in-store operations. The centerpiece example is ADAM, a robotic system built with Richtech Robotics and powered by Azure AI. What started as a beverage-serving robot now operates as a conversational, context-aware assistant that adjusts drink recommendations based on time of day, weather, and current promotions, and responds to requests like sweetness or ice level in natural language. Richtech is extending the same vision, voice, and reasoning stack into a broader “Agentic Store” initiative aimed at guiding shoppers to products and flagging empty or misplaced shelf items.

On Saturday, Amazon Ads rolled out new agentic AI tools built for planning and creative work, another sign that the ad side of retail is racing to keep pace with the operations side. Also over the weekend, Microsoft partnered with Richtech on agentic in-store systems more broadly, retailers said they project roughly 70 percent of routine in-store tasks will eventually be automated, and analysts noted that strategics, not financial buyers, drove 71 percent of last year’s ad-tech M&A activity.

Sunday brought a wave of venture funding into the space. The Trade Desk introduced its first AI agents for automated media buying, with Stagwell signed on as the launch client. The IAB Tech Lab released an Agentic Roadmap extending the OpenRTB standard with new protocols for agent-to-agent trading. On the supply chain side, Freehand closed a $75 million round to scale autonomous AI agents that manage supply chain spend, freight audits, and vendor negotiations, while Lyric raised $43.5 million led by Insight Partners for an AI supply chain decision platform that has landed a deployment with Mondelēz International.

Friday’s headline was arguably the biggest of the stretch: Stripe and OpenAI launched an agentic commerce protocol aimed at letting AI assistants complete retail purchases inside conversational interfaces. Stripe also flagged three trends it’s seeing across large retailers: restructuring product catalogs so autonomous agents can reliably search and transact, building both branded agents and integrations with third-party agents at the same time, and pushing for standardized infrastructure so multiple agents can transact against the same merchant systems without one-off integrations. Friday also saw LG Electronics acquire a majority stake in Bear Robotics, a McKinsey survey finding limited AI impact on merchant operations so far, and OneRail raising $42 million to optimize last-mile delivery and inventory.

Saturday’s funding wasn’t limited to media and supply chain. Fay raised $50 million for AI-powered personalized nutrition therapy, and Queue launched autonomous robotic pharmacy kiosks on the back of a $12.6 million seed round, both signs that the agentic wave is spreading well past the core shopping cart and into adjacent health and wellness categories that retailers increasingly compete in.

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The Fed Raised Rates, and Retail Felt It

The biggest macro story of the week landed Wednesday, when the Federal Reserve raised its benchmark interest rate by 25 basis points to a target range of 3.75% to 4%, marking its first increase since 2023. The move caught plenty of people off guard after a year of expectations that the Fed was done tightening. CNBC

What stood out in the details: officials aren’t projecting a quick reversal. There are no rate cuts penciled in for the next couple of years, with only one cut indicated for 2028 and at least one for 2029. The committee also nudged its inflation expectations higher, and updated projections showed that most officials see the possibility of at least one more quarter-point hike later this year, with some penciling in two additional increases.

For retailers, this is a mixed bag heading into the holidays. Higher rates mean pricier consumer credit right as shoppers lean on buy-now-pay-later and store cards for gift purchases, and they raise the cost of carrying inventory and financing store remodels or new locations. Markets shrugged it off in the near term, with the S&P 500 rising after the announcement, but the shift in tone from “rates are coming down” to “rates might go up again” is the kind of thing that shows up in Q4 guidance calls.

Consumers Are Still Spending, For Now

The rate news landed the same day as a reminder that American shoppers haven’t pulled back yet. Census Bureau data released Wednesday showed retail sales rose 1.2% in August after a revised 0.5% decline in July, a broad advance and the biggest monthly gain in five months. That beat expectations: the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists had called for a 0.8% increase, and the gain came despite rising gas prices eating into discretionary budgets.

Put those two stories next to each other and you get the tension defining retail right now: spending is holding up better than expected, but the cost of money just got more expensive, and there’s a real chance it gets more expensive still before the holidays are over.

Amazon Takes Aim at Walmart’s Delivery Edge

On the operations side, the week’s most interesting story came out of Wall Street analyst notes rather than a company press release. Bank of America analyst Justin Post reported that Amazon could dramatically expand its same-day delivery network as it targets a key advantage currently held by Walmart. Citing a Business Insider report, Post said Amazon is considering a plan called Project Mercury that would expand its Sub Same-Day fulfillment network to more than 1,000 facilities by 2031, up from 85 today. Those smaller, closer-to-customer facilities currently stock roughly 90,000 of Amazon’s fastest-selling products, including household essentials, Fresh items, and medicines.

This is the story to watch if you’re in retail tech or supply chain. Walmart’s biggest structural edge over Amazon has always been its store footprint, which doubles as a same-day fulfillment network without the capital cost of building new facilities from scratch. A tenfold expansion of Amazon’s own dense, small-format fulfillment layer is a direct challenge to that advantage, and it would have ripple effects for last-mile logistics providers, micro-fulfillment technology vendors, and any retailer trying to compete on delivery speed against two companies with essentially unlimited capital.

The Holiday Sales Wars Start Early, Again

Retailers also made clear this week that “holiday season” now effectively starts in early October. Target and Amazon confirmed via press release that their dueling October sale events will return next month, with both companies promoting deals from October 6 to October 7. Walmart is getting its own event started even earlier, running October 5 through 11 with discounts across home goods, fashion, tech, and toys, while Target’s Circle Week runs October 6 and 7, with Target Circle 360 members getting early access to select deals.

This continues a trend that’s been building for a couple of years now: major retailers no longer wait for Black Friday to open the promotional floodgates. Instead they’re staking out October territory before shoppers’ budgets get stretched thin by the actual holidays, and before rivals can capture that early-bird spending. For anyone selling into these retailers, it’s another reminder that planogram and inventory decisions for Q4 need to be locked well before Halloween, not after it.

NRF’s Big Show Comes to Europe

Away from the earnings and stock-price headlines, the National Retail Federation held its Retail’s Big Show Europe event in Paris from September 15 to 17, and the conversation there tracked closely with what’s happening across the industry’s tech stack. One theme worth flagging for anyone in RFID or inventory technology: some retailers are reporting that RFID’s boost to inventory efficiency is becoming even more valuable in the tariff era, since higher embedded costs on many items make it more important to avoid stockouts and misplaced merchandise. That’s a notable shift in how the RFID pitch is being framed. It’s no longer just a loss-prevention or omnichannel story; it’s increasingly a margin-protection story tied directly to tariff exposure, which should resonate with finance teams that might otherwise see RFID as a nice-to-have.

Smaller Moves Worth Noting

A few other items rounded out the week. Regional grocer Save Mart Companies launched Instacart-powered curbside pickup at its Lucky and FoodMaxx banners across Northern California, meaning curbside collection is now available at all three of its core banners. And Toys”R”Us continued leaning into its post-bankruptcy comeback, with new locations set to include Creator Studios aimed at influencers and brands, alongside cafés and confectionery shops, as the chain now generates more than $2 billion in annual retail sales across more than 1,680 stores and ecommerce operations globally.

The Bottom Line

If there’s a thread connecting this week’s stories, it’s that retail is bracing for a more expensive, more competitive fourth quarter at the exact moment consumers are proving more resilient than expected. Rates are rising instead of falling, Amazon and Walmart are escalating their delivery infrastructure race, and the promotional calendar keeps creeping earlier into fall. Retailers and their tech partners have a narrow window to lock in Q4 strategy before all of that collides at once.

Holiday shopping is starting earlier again. Amazon and Target announced that their major October promotional events will run October 6-7, putting two of the country’s largest retailers head-to-head before Halloween. Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days will target Prime members, while Target Circle Deal Days will focus on Target’s loyalty ecosystem.

Best Buy launched its holiday gifting center earlier than ever, using shop-in-shops featuring brands including Google and Meta to bring shoppers into stores.

This is less about a single Black Friday weekend and more about a multi-month battle for consumer attention. Retailers are using loyalty programs, personalization and increasingly sophisticated digital merchandising to capture holiday demand earlier.

Latest Retail Tech News

Domestic

The self-service pendulum is swinging back. A widely discussed CNN Business feature published Thursday chronicled how chains including Burger King are pulling touchscreen kiosks and AI ordering tools out of stores and reinvesting in human staff and hospitality, arguing that some of retail and restaurant’s digital-first bets of the past several years quietly underdelivered on both cost savings and customer experience. It is a useful gut check for any executive whose 2027 roadmap still assumes kiosks and self-checkout are a one-way street.

Separately, Amazon confirmed Thursday it is raising the minimum starting wage for full-time core operations employees by a dollar, to $20 an hour, while rolling out a new no-fee banking benefit called Day 1 Financial through First Tech Federal Credit Union. Starting in October, all US Amazon employees also get uncapped 10 percent off everyday essentials on Amazon.com and Whole Foods online, plus 20 percent off in Whole Foods stores, a benefit that doubles as a loyalty play for the company’s own workforce.

Global

Retail’s Big Show Europe wrapped its three-day run in Paris on Thursday, and the takeaway coverage keeps circling the same theme as its US counterpart: agentic AI is moving from pilot to procurement conversation for pricing, assortment, and logistics teams across the continent. Expect more concrete European rollout announcements to follow in the coming weeks as vendors capitalize on the Paris momentum.

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Retail Stocks

Domestic. The Dow shed 631 points, or 1.21%, closing at 51,461.90 after the Federal Open Market Committee voted to lift the benchmark rate to a 3.75% to 4% range. The S&P 500 slipped 0.45% to 7,551.81, and the Nasdaq essentially flatlined, down just 0.01%. Financials took the brunt of the selling, but the rate move was felt across every rate-sensitive corner of the market, including retail and housing names. Home improvement stocks were already sitting under pressure heading into the Fed decision, with sustained high mortgage rates weighing on the housing outlook and pulling Home Depot lower earlier in the week. Fed officials also released new projections showing 16 of 18 policymakers expect at least one more quarter-point hike before year end, which is the kind of signal that keeps discretionary retail investors up at night. Higher borrowing costs squeeze both the consumer’s wallet and the retailer’s capital expenditure plans, and Wall Street spent the day pricing that in.

There was a silver lining buried in the data. Advance estimates for August retail and food services sales came in up 5.3% year over year, or a still-solid 2.6% after adjusting for inflation, with gas stations and non-store retailers driving most of the gain. That is a resilient consumer, even with a Fed that is not done tightening.

By Thursday morning, futures were clawing back some of Wednesday’s losses, with Dow futures up about 400 points as oil prices eased, so do not be surprised if today’s tape looks calmer than yesterday’s.

Global. Asian and European markets shrugged off the Fed news better than Wall Street did. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was down a modest 0.62% and mainland China’s CSI 300 closed 0.45% lower, while Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 actually gained 0.41%. In Europe, the pan-European Stoxx 600 added 0.7% in early Thursday trading, led by London’s FTSE 100, up 0.8%. The Bank of England was expected to hold rates steady on Thursday despite inflation running well above target, a reminder that not every central bank is following the Fed’s playbook right now.

Retail Tech News

Domestic. The AI-in-retail conversation kept humming right through the Fed noise. Marketing technology and AI vendors flooded the wires with September 15 announcements: Profound, a startup helping brands get named inside AI chatbot answers, raised a $180 million Series D at a $1.8 billion valuation. Meanwhile Bazaarvoice, working with retail media analyst Kiri Masters, published survey results on what happens after an AI tool makes a recommendation. Of more than 3,600 US and EMEA shoppers surveyed, 65% still clicked the brand they already knew rather than the AI’s top pick, 24% went with the AI’s recommendation, and 11% just took the cheapest option. That is a useful gut check for any retailer betting big on AI-driven discovery: brand equity still wins more often than the algorithm.

Global. The AI rollout is very much a worldwide story. Brazilian retailer Magazine Luiza is pushing AI agents into its logistics operation through its Luizalabs unit to monitor deliveries and trigger automated actions. In Romania, Auchan is piloting AI-powered smart carts that identify products via computer vision and let shoppers check out directly from the cart, starting with 40 units at a Bucharest hypermarket. French chain Cooperative U is testing similar connected trolleys from a German technology provider at a Super U location in Alsace. It is early days for all of these pilots, but the pattern is consistent: physical retailers everywhere are racing to put AI hardware directly into the shopping cart, not just the app.

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The biggest story from Monday was not a single retailer. It was the continued convergence of AI, commerce and the store. Shipt launched an AI shopping assistant, Best Buy moved earlier into its holiday technology strategy, and Mastercard executives discussed what happens when AI moves from recommending products to actually completing purchases. At the same time, retailers are increasingly using stores as media, experience and fulfillment assets rather than simply places to transact.

Latest Retail Tech News

Domestic

Checkout-free technology is quietly graduating from flagship-only novelty to a standard store retrofit. Standard AI and Trigo are now converting ordinary, already-built stores into checkout-free formats without the gut renovations that early cashierless pilots required, and Amazon, Alibaba, and Microsoft are all pushing toward hybrid formats that blend automation with human staff rather than replacing them outright. It is a meaningful shift from a few years ago, when “just walk out” felt like something reserved for a handful of showcase locations.

Healthcare inside retail had a split weekend. On one side, several major retailers and insurers are acquiring health systems and rebranding delivery assets to grab a bigger piece of the primary care market. On the other, some of those same kinds of retailers are closing standalone healthcare units and pivoting toward pharmacy-centric partnerships and digital health startups instead. Read together, the two stories say the same thing from opposite directions: standalone retail clinics are proving hard to scale profitably, so operators are consolidating around pharmacy and partnership models rather than building health systems from scratch.

On the funding side, Chef Robotics raised roughly $65.6 million to keep scaling its AI-enabled robotic arms, which have now produced more than 40 million meals across US and Canadian food plants. Mealogic, a white-label meal delivery infrastructure platform, closed a separate $16 million round led by S2G Investments with Unilever Ventures and others participating. Both point to continued investor appetite for the unglamorous, operational side of food and retail automation, even as VC funding broadly has been choppier this year. It also continues a pattern we have flagged before in this newsletter: the money is increasingly flowing toward back-of-house execution, robotic arms, kitchen automation, fulfillment infrastructure, rather than the customer-facing chatbot layer that dominated the AI retail conversation a year or two ago.

Global

Across the pond, Retail Technology Innovation Hub’s weekly numbers roundup flagged that 18% of UK teens already lean on an AI assistant, Claude, ChatGPT, or Gemini, once a week to compare products before buying, and that 55% of British shoppers have stopped shopping with a retailer or abandoned a purchase over its returns policy. That returns friction is showing up as several major UK fashion retailers, Asos among them, face scrutiny over tightened returns rules. Also on the UK tech front, headset and call-point maker VoCoVo struck a rollout deal with home and garden retailer The Range to outfit all 283 of its stores.

Store Openings and Closings

Domestic

Saks Global’s Chapter 11 wind-down keeps moving. The company is closing 57 of its roughly 100 off-price Saks Off 5th locations along with all five Neiman Marcus Last Call stores, while keeping 12 Off 5th locations open and continuing business as usual across its 70 full-line Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus, and Bergdorf Goodman stores. Subject to court approval, A&G Real Estate Partners will auction off 59 of those leases, representing about 1.7 million square feet of retail space.

Elsewhere, a fresh wave of September closures is hitting familiar names. Walgreens, Nordstrom, JCPenney, Neiman Marcus, Lucky Brand, and West Marine are all shutting individual locations this month, driven by a mix of bankruptcy restructuring, underperformance, and efforts to concentrate resources in stronger markets. For shoppers, these are more than headlines. A nearby pharmacy or department store that closes can end a routine that has been in place for years, even when the retailer itself remains healthy overall.

Dick’s Sporting Goods is planning a roughly 100,000-square-foot House of Sport location in Maple Grove, Minnesota. The two-level store is designed around the company’s increasingly experiential format.

House of Sport is an interesting model for the future of physical retail because it changes the role of the store. Rather than competing with e-commerce on convenience, the concept is designed around experiences that cannot be replicated by a package arriving at the front door.

That is also why mall developers are increasingly interested in experiential concepts. The objective is not simply to fill vacant square footage. It is to bring traffic back into the broader shopping environment.

Meta is also leaning further into physical retail for its AI-enabled glasses. The company has opened a Meta Lab location in Houston and plans additional locations in Atlanta, San Diego, Chicago, Scottsdale and New York. The stores are designed around product demonstrations, customization and eye-care consultations.

The strategy is notable because Meta is effectively using stores to educate consumers about a new product category. AI glasses are difficult to understand from a product page alone. Consumers need to see the product, try it and understand how it fits into everyday life.

It is worth keeping the bigger picture in view too. Coresight Research now projects roughly 7,900 US store closures for all of 2026, down 4.5% from last year, against about 5,500 openings, up 4.4%. Discount and grocery chains continue to lead the openings column, while drugstores, home retailers, office suppliers, and apparel chains are driving most of the closures. Put simply, the closures-versus-openings gap is narrowing for the first time in a few years, which fits the broader theme we have been tracking all year: real estate that opened up after the last wave of bankruptcies is finally getting absorbed by expansion-minded chains rather than sitting vacant.

Retail Stocks

Friday gave the market its best day in nearly a week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 0.98% to close at 52,573.29, the S&P 500 climbed 0.86% to 7,656.98, and the Nasdaq Composite advanced 0.96% to 26,333.04, snapping a four-day losing streak across all three major averages. The rally was driven by an in-line August inflation report: headline CPI rose 0.4% for the month, putting the annual rate at 3.4%, while core CPI, which strips out food and energy, ticked up 0.3% monthly and 2.4% annually, just slightly hotter than economists expected but not enough to spook markets.

Retail stocks traded against a difficult broader market backdrop Monday. The Dow fell 0.29%, the S&P 500 declined 0.48% and the Nasdaq dropped 0.56%, with AI-related concerns and higher oil prices weighing on investor sentiment.

Against that backdrop, several retail names showed meaningful moves.

The leaders: Walmart gained 1.80% to $109.08, Costco rose 1.56% to $918.91, Target gained 1.84% to $158.70, Kroger advanced 4.14% to $60.91, Albertsons gained roughly 5.4% to about $12.72, Best Buy jumped 4.44% to $94.83 and Macy’s gained 2.26% to $22.58.

Best Buy’s move was particularly notable. The stock closed at a new 52-week high after rising 4.44%, continuing a strong run into the holiday period.

Home improvement: Home Depot gained 0.69% to $310.87, while Lowe’s rose approximately 1% to roughly $199.

Off-price: TJX was essentially flat at $125.99, while Ross Stores declined 0.30% to $230.04 and Burlington fell 2.84% to $232.24.

Dollar and grocery: Dollar General jumped 3.68% to $129.17, while Dollar Tree gained 0.85% to $119.17.

Beauty and sporting goods: Ulta rose 0.34% to $548.65. Dick’s Sporting Goods declined 3.15% to $130.77, while Academy Sports fell 2.00% to $54.25.

Apparel: Nike gained 0.68% to $37.05 and lululemon rose 1.34% to $100.30. Abercrombie & Fitch fell 3.17% to $140.62, while Gap declined 2.74% to $20.92.

Williams-Sonoma gained 1.41% to $229.43.

One of Monday’s more interesting signals was the divergence within discretionary retail. Best Buy and Macy’s performed well, while Burlington, Dick’s, Abercrombie and Gap moved lower. That suggests investors are differentiating sharply between individual retail stories rather than simply buying or selling the sector as a whole.

Credit-sensitive names caught a bid as oil prices pulled back from their recent run higher, with Amazon shares adding about 1.9% on the day. For the tickers we track here, the more important story is what is coming this week rather than what just happened. Wednesday brings the FOMC’s rate decision, with markets pricing in roughly an 88% probability of a rate cut, and Wednesday, September 16 delivers August retail sales data, the single number most likely to move WMT, TGT, COST, and the rest of the group this week. With the Fed and a fresh consumer spending read landing back to back, expect volatility in retail names regardless of which way either report breaks.

Culturally Relevant Stories

Agentic AI officially crossed over from retail-tech buzzword to measurable consumer behavior over the holidays. Salesforce data released this weekend shows AI agents and other agentic tools influenced 17% of total holiday retail sales during the 2025 Thanksgiving weekend, worth an estimated $13.5 billion. That is a meaningful number for a category that, two years ago, barely showed up in anyone’s attribution models. It also lines up with the UK research above showing teenage shoppers are already treating AI assistants as a default first stop before they buy anything, which suggests the Thanksgiving figure is more a floor than a ceiling heading into this year’s holiday season.

New York Fashion Week was a major backdrop for retail activity Monday, with brands using cultural moments to create product launches, collaborations and physical experiences.

Dazed and YMC announced a limited-edition collaboration tied to their respective anniversaries, while beauty brands used Fashion Week to create physical activations around new launches.

This is increasingly how fashion retail works. The product is only one component of the proposition. The surrounding cultural narrative creates attention, and attention creates traffic across social, digital commerce and stores.

See you back here tomorrow

📈 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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