Brick-and-mortar Trends

Chewy’s 10-Q, Petco’s Q2 call and IDEXX’s CoVetAI deal point to both pet chains guiding to 25 or more new veterinary clinics for 2027 by their March earnings calls. Chewy’s two-teams line is the tell.

TJX, Ross and Burlington are likely to guide at least 400 combined net new stores for calendar 2027, a record for the trio, when they report fourth-quarter results in late February to early March 2027. Three August earnings tells point that way: a raised TJX target with a 4% pace, two in-year plan raises at Ross, and a 115-store, $875 million capex year at Burlington.

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 dark store is a warehouse pretending to be a shop. Layout, slotting and staffing decide whether the delivery promise survives peak hour.

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.