Sales Grew 3.9%; topping $1 trillion for the first time
Off-price and discounters led all categories
Digital sales grew at a slower pace, closing the gap with brick & mortar growth Read More >>
Among retailers who have released results, Abercrombie and Lululemon lowered guidance, while Five Below and American Eagle raised theirs Read More >>
The Checkout Lane
Source: Retail Dive, Chain Store Age, Nation’s Restaurant News, NBC5 Chicago
Aldi will continue expanding at a fast clip in 2026, with plans for over 180 new stores. The new stores will include its first forays into Maine and Colorado, while increasing the brand’s presence in the Southwest with several openings planned for Phoenix and Las Vegas. By 2028, Aldi will have invested $9 billion into its stores and hopes to have 3,200 U.S. stores.
Amazon’s latest foray into physical retail takes aim at the supercenter format dominated by Walmart and Target. The city of Orland Park, Illinois recently approved plans for a 229,000 square foot store for the online giant. The filings indicate that the new concept will sell groceries and general merchandise; unlike Amazon Fresh which exclusively sells groceries. The plans also show a dedicated staging area for online order fulfillment. No word on when the store is slated to open.
Barnes & Noble’s comeback story continues in 2026 with plans for over 60 new stores. To put the company’s recent growth in perspective, the bookseller opened more stores last year than it had for the entire period between 2009-2019. In addition to the new stores, Barnes is teaming up with film studio A24 to have a featured section in select locations.
Bob’s Discount Furniture is planning an IPO for later this year. In their regulatory filing, the company disclosed that it generates 86% of revenue from stores, the average transaction is $1,400, and that it has shifted the majority of its sourcing to Vietnam from China to mitigate the high tariffs on the latter country. While the furniture sector as a whole has been struggling following a pandemic-led boom, Bob’s has been able to pick up market share as many local and regional chains have shuttered.
Chick-fil-a is celebrating its 80th anniversary by bringing back a number of fan favorites such as the cow calendar, a collectible cup with retro logos, and an update to its play areas at many locations. Local operators are also encouraged to engage with customers in unique ways such as hosting bingo nights, offering a free ice cream cone for eating your meal without looking at your phone, and a sauce sampling inspired by a wine sommelier experience.
Lowe’s has announced plans to sell the software behind its point of sale system to other retailers. The product will be marketed under the brand name Meridus and will be open to small and mid-sized retailers outside of the home improvement sector. The company touts its software’s ability to run on most hardware systems and that it will not collect any data from its customers.
Macy’s will close 14 stores in the first half of 2026. The department store often evaluates its stores and strategically closes underperforming locations following the Holiday season. The closings cover a wide array of geographic regions with no state having more than two stores slated to close.
Saks Global, the parent company of luxury department store chains such as Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus, and Bergdorf Goodman; along with off-price banner Saks Off 5th has filed for bankruptcy. The firm has brought back Neiman Marcus’ former CEO Geoffrey van Raemdonck to steer the company through the bankruptcy process due to his deep relationships with luxury vendors.
Shake Shack is planning 55-60 new restaurants this year, which will include some smaller format stores that will allow it to enter a greater variety of real estate types. The burger brand has been able to improve margins by 120- basis points with an optimized new kitchen design.
Walmart will be expanding its drone delivery service pilot to 150 stores in the Los Angeles, St. Louis, Cincinnati, and Miami markets and plans to have 270 stores offering the service by 2027. These stores are on top of launches that have begun or are in process in Atlanta, Dallas, Charlotte, Houston, Orlando, and Tampa. The service will allow deliveries in 30 minutes or less and is being done in partnership with Wing (owned by Google).
The Big View
Target had a 2025 it would most likely rather forget, but with new leadership on the horizon, the company is planning a reset that will emphasize both the retailer’s traditional strength in innovative merchandising and a new focus on the company’s value proposition. Read more in this article from Retail Dive >>
For most people, the chance to travel internationally is a chance to see natural sights you couldn’t see at home, experience a new culture, or visit historic landmarks you’d only seen in books. However, for some Americans, the most essential stop on their itineraries is a visit to the local Costco to pick up some bulk souvenirs and see how the hot dogs taste overseas. Find out more about this trend from this piece in the Wall Street Journal >>
Videos of the Month: Last month we featured a story about how the top quick service restaurants on a recent customer satisfaction survey weren’t actually restaurants, but gas stations. Buc-ee’s, Wawa, and Kwik Trip have all developed cult followings for their food, cleanliness, and experience. To dive a little deeper into this intensifying competition, check out this video that compares these stores (along with another favorite, Sheetz) as they encroach on each other’s turf. For a more in depth look at Wawa, this video from CNBC is also well worth watching >>
By the Numbers
Source: Green Street
From the Research Desk
With retail’s holiday sales results trickling in this month (a better picture won’t be known until late February when major retailers issue their Q4 reporting), perhaps the most striking number isn’t really being commented on at all: 4%. That is the number, according to Salesforce, that e-commerce sales grew during the holiday season in 2025. According to the National Retail Federation, overall retail sales this year grew 3.9%. Adobe was a little more bullish on e-commerce, pegging the growth rate at 6%. But, both of these numbers are telling the same story: ecommerce growth is plateauing after over a decade of outsized performance.
At the beginning of the 2010s, ecommerce represented less than 10% of total retail sales, but the sector was growing in the double digits quarter after quarter; while retailers like Toys R Us, Sports Authority, and Borders Books (to name a few) were liquidating with alarming frequency; leading pundits to proclaim the inevitability of a “retail apocalypse”. Wall Street analysts wrote off brick & mortar retail as a format that would soon be – for all intents and purposes – dead.
Over time, as retailers like Walmart and Target became more sophisticated at using their physical footprint to complement rather than compete with ecommerce, their market share stabilized. These days, depending on how you define ecommerce and what sectors you decide to include, ecommerce penetration falls somewhere around 17-20% and its been stuck in that range since the pandemic. While that number is much higher than it was 15 years ago, we’ve basically reached a plateau. Over 80% of retail sales are still done in brick & mortar stores, and with ecommerce growing at roughly the same rate as retail as a whole, that market share looks to be the new equilibrium.
That doesn’t mean that brick & mortar stores can breathe a sigh of relief and declare victory. Technology is always evolving and AI will bring new challenges to retailers. However, this time retailers are coming prepared, with Walmart pledging to invest $80 billion in AI development. Over at Amazon, CEO Andy Jassy’s recent comments about AI representing a new death knell for physical stores seemed to elicit a yawn from most analysts. Meanwhile, as we reported above, Amazon is preparing to roll out a new superstore concept in Chicago’s south suburbs. This would seem to indicate that even Amazon understands that regardless of how transformative AI ends up being in retail, a physical store footprint is a competitive advantage.
Song of the Month: Not many bands invented entire musical subgenres on their own, but in the late 80s and early 90s, St. Louis’ Uncle Tupelo were the most prominent band to update country rock with a post-punk edge and in the process helped dozens of bands and artists find a home under the “alternative country” banner and its later rebranding as “Americana.” Finding the connecting thread that gave both CCR and the Minutemen a blend of blue collar, no frills economy with heartfelt lyrics and music made for a long road trip. After Tupelo broke up in 1994, bassist Jeff Tweedy went on to form Wilco, who have since released over a dozen critically acclaimed albums that increasingly shed their country influences in favor of a more experimental rock sound. However, Jay Farrar’s band Son Volt would double down on Tupelo’s blend of Midwestern twang and alternative rock on one of the best debut albums of the 90s with Trace. In April 1996 the group performed their best known song “Drown” on Late Night with Conan O’Brien; and watching from this vantage point in 2026, it’s hard to fathom how far modern music has strayed from this powerful invocation of three chords and the truth. In an era of AI-slop, the real thing shines brighter than ever. Watch Here >>
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