Charlotte Hughes 
Costco’s fiscal 2027 plan of 33 openings nets out to 28 new warehouses, but the base case here is 24–26 by the year’s close on 29 August 2027. Three signals, including a fully documented fiscal 2026 markdown chain, point to a shortfall that likely surfaces at the March or May 2027 call.
GameStop’s September filings point to a governance escalation at eBay rather than a higher price, with nominations likely inside the February 17 to March 19, 2027 advance-notice window. The same signals suggest no raised bid, no tender offer and no stake at or above 10%.
US Customs and Border Protection has issued two Withhold Release Orders blocking palm oil and derivative products from Indonesian producers Mitra Aneka Rezeki and Hardaya Inti Plantation. Shipments are detained at all US ports of entry, and importers must prove by clear and convincing evidence that no forced labor was involved.
Costco disclosed $184 million in IEEPA tariff refunds in its fiscal fourth quarter and said most of the money is going back into member prices. The disclosure is the clearest sign yet that the post-ruling refund wave is reaching shelf prices.
Signals from the last four weeks point to installment terms surfacing inside AI shopping results before checkout, with a UCP pay-later standard authored with Klarna and Affirm and Google showing terms on US product results by 31 March 2027. NRF 2027 in mid-January is the first checkpoint.
Stripe and Advent walked away from $60.50 on August 28 and PayPal has traded about 12% below that since, while the standalone plan moved the stock less than a dollar. The pattern suggests a public activist campaign, most likely with a Venmo separation ask, before the Q4 2026 results in early February 2027.
The UK Competition and Markets Authority found on September 15, 2026 that Co-op Group’s completed takeover of Southern Co-op may substantially lessen competition around 19 convenience stores and one pair of funeral sites. The parties have until September 22 to offer store divestments or face a Phase 2 investigation.
Marks & Spencer has put Too Good To Go surprise bags of surplus bakery items into more than 350 M&S Food stores, priced at £3.80 with a £10.20 minimum value. The move follows a trial and months of scrutiny over food in M&S bins.
From 1 October 2026 the tribunal claims window doubles to six months, and from 30 October every UK shop becomes liable for customer harassment of its staff unless it took all reasonable steps. Here is what independents and chains must do before the deadlines.
FedEx has launched a $99-a-month Shopify app that shows a guaranteed duty and tax figure at checkout and covers any overage, part of its new Global Trade Navigator suite. The move lands as the US, EU and Canada have all stripped duty-free treatment from low-value parcels, and puts FedEx in direct competition with UPS Global Checkout and Zonos.