Trends in physical retail including store formats, customer experience, and omnichannel strategies.
Announced US retail seasonal hiring is likely to set another record low when Challenger reports in late September 2026, at or below last year’s 372,520. The more useful call is that the headline will likely overstate the real contraction, because retail’s announcement channel is going dark faster than its labor demand is falling.
A pre-lease checklist for retailers about to open location number two, covering the cash, people and systems that usually break first.
The short list of store metrics that actually explain performance, how to calculate each one and what a good number looks like.
How to schedule store staff from real traffic data so peak weeks are covered without burning payroll in the quiet hours.
The 2026 FIFA World Cup helped push US consumer spending to its strongest June in more than four years. Host cities and their retailers captured the bulk of the gains, led by international visitors.
Three recent signals point to Best Buy making Best Buy Ads and its Marketplace the centerpiece of its holiday 2026 margin story. The verdict is checkable at the Q3 FY27 print in late November 2026 and the holiday Q4 print in early 2027.
Clienteling turns store associates into a measurable sales channel. Here is the 2026 stack, comp model, metrics and attribution that make it pay off.
Floor flow, not price, sets the ceiling on basket size. A retail breakdown of decompression zones, the right-turn bias, adjacency, and the metrics that make layout testable.
Retail deep dive: Tools and vendors for brick-and-mortar in 2026.
Retail deep dive: How small retailers should choose a location.