Amazon's First Big-Box Store 📦

Amazon is planning to open a 229,000-square-foot store in the Chicago area that will sell groceries and general merchandise, marking a renewed push into physical retail with a big-box format similar to rivals Walmart and Target. If approved by officials, Amazon could begin construction later this year.

What’s the plan? As part of the proposal, Amazon plans to build a one-story, 229,000-square-foot store in Orland Park, Illinois, offering groceries, household essentials, and general merchandise. By comparison, Walmart’s U.S. Supercenters average about 179,000 square feet.

The Amazon facility would also include a limited warehouse component to support on-site operations and provide space for delivery drivers to pick up orders.

🤞🏻 Elusive Luck: Between 2015 and 2020, Amazon rolled out several physical store formats, including bookstores, a gift-oriented concept, automated grab-and-go outlets, and a mainstream grocery chain. Most were later scaled back or shut down during the pandemic as the company struggled to find a winning formula for in-person retail under the Amazon brand.

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U.S. online holiday spending reached a record level in the 2025 season, even as growth slowed, according to Adobe Analytics. Online sales from November 1 to December 31 rose 6.8% year over year to $257.8 billion, down from an 8.7% growth rate last year. The final figure still beat Adobe’s earlier forecast of $253.4 billion.

💵 Buy Now, Pay Later: Buy Now, Pay Later played a bigger role this season, accounting for $20 billion in online spending, up 9.8% from last year.

🛍️ AI-Powered Shopping: Discount-led demand boosted sales of electronics, appliances, and sporting goods. Smartphones accounted for 56.4% of transactions, and traffic from AI-powered shopping assistants surged nearly 700%, highlighting shifting consumer behavior online.

💰 Price Sensitive: Spending was driven largely by Cyber Week, with higher-income shoppers continuing to buy, while discounts and flexible payment options attracted more price-sensitive consumers. Inflation pressures and the economic impact of President Trump’s trade policies made many shoppers cautious about discretionary purchases

Walmart has partnered with Google to enable shoppers to discover and purchase products through Google’s AI assistant, Gemini. The feature will be available across Walmart and Sam’s Club, starting in the U.S. and expanding internationally. The companies announced the tie-up at the National Retail Federation’s Big Show in New York, though they did not share launch timing or financial details.

The move reflects Walmart’s push to adapt to how consumers are increasingly using AI chatbots to search, plan, and shop. In October, Walmart struck a similar deal with OpenAI’s ChatGPT, enabling purchases through an “Instant Checkout” feature inside the chatbot.

Alongside partnerships with external AI platforms, Walmart continues to invest in its own chatbot, Sparky, to reach customers earlier in their buying journey and reduce friction between product discovery and purchase.

Target plans to expand its wellness assortment by 30% in 2026, adding thousands of new products across food, beverage, beauty, health, baby, and apparel. Many of the new items will be priced under $10, alongside new in-store and online experiences aimed at more personalized product discovery. The retailer said more than 1,000 new apparel items and accessories will roll out over the year.

In food and nutrition, Target is leaning into protein and functional wellness. The lineup includes the exclusive retail debut of ButcherBox’s 100% grass-fed beef, protein snacks, and powders from brands like Misfits, Bloom, and FlavCity, as well as expanded supplements focused on immunity and gut health.

The retailer is also growing its functional and non-alcoholic beverage range, including mushroom coffee and protein drinks.

Fast Retailing, the owner of Uniqlo, reported a strong start to its fiscal year, with first-quarter operating profit jumping 34% year over year. Profit for the September–November period rose to 205.6 billion yen ($1.3 billion), well above market expectations, driven by solid sales in Japan and overseas expansion.

The company raised its full-year earnings forecast to 650 billion yen from 610 billion yen, signaling confidence in a fifth straight year of record profits. Management said it was able to absorb the impact of U.S. tariffs, pointing to resilient demand and improving performance in mainland China, its largest overseas market.

Domestic profit climbed 20.6% on strong demand for sweatshirts and warm innerwear, while international profit surged 41.6%.

U.S. wholesale inventories rose at a slower pace in October, increasing 0.2% from the prior month after a stronger 0.5% gain in September, according to Commerce Department data. The figure matched economists’ expectations and is a key input in calculating quarterly GDP.

The increase was driven by nondurable goods, with inventories of drugs up 1.9%, farm products rising 3.2%, and groceries edging higher. In contrast, durable goods inventories fell 0.2%, led by a 1.3% drop in automotive stocks and a 1.4% decline in professional equipment.

The inventory-to-sales ratio ticked up to 1.3 from 1.29 in September, indicating wholesalers are holding slightly more stock relative to sales.

New York Attorney General Letitia James has demanded information from Instacart about its price-testing practices after reports that users were shown different prices for the same products at the same stores. The request seeks details on Instacart’s pricing agreements with retailers and brands, as well as how its AI-driven pricing tools were used.

The inquiry follows a report that found price differences of up to 23% for identical items, with an average gap of 13%. Regulators are examining whether Instacart engaged in dynamic or personalized algorithmic pricing under New York’s Algorithmic Pricing Disclosure Act. James said the practices raise serious concerns about consumer protection.

Instacart said it has ended all price tests after customer backlash and maintained that it never used real-time or personalized pricing based on personal data.

Alphabet-owned Wing is expanding its drone delivery partnership with Walmart to an additional 150 stores, marking its second major rollout in less than a year. The expansion builds on existing operations in Dallas–Fort Worth and Atlanta and will roll out through 2026 and into 2027.

Once complete, Wing will operate from more than 270 Walmart stores across the U.S., serving roughly 10% of the population. New markets include Los Angeles, Houston, Miami, St. Louis, Cincinnati, and Charlotte, with Houston set to launch first. Customers typically use the service for small, frequent orders such as groceries, snacks, and household essentials, with top users placing up to three orders per week.

The scale-up underscores Walmart’s role as Wing’s primary commercial partner as drone delivery moves from pilot programs to broader deployment. Wing is focusing on co-locating operations at Walmart sites and increasing volume to improve unit economics, signaling a shift from experimentation to operational scale in last-mile logistics.

Selena Gomez’s Rare Beauty will launch at Ulta Beauty on February 1, expanding availability both online and across Ulta’s store network. The rollout marks Rare Beauty’s first retail expansion since its 2020 debut, when it launched with a direct-to-consumer site and an exclusive partnership with Sephora.

Rare Beauty generated roughly $400 million in sales in 2024, a 14% year-over-year increase, with industry estimates valuing the brand at more than $2 billion.
Ahead of its Ulta Beauty debut, demand has been strong, with Rare Beauty ranking among the top five most-searched brands on ulta.com and the most-searched cosmetics brand on the platform in 2025.

For Ulta, the partnership aligns with its broader push to refresh its merchandise mix and add differentiated brands. The retailer has been aggressively expanding its assortment, adding dozens of new brands in 2025.

Nike has sold its digital collectibles subsidiary RTFKT, marking a clear retreat from NFTs and blockchain-based products. The sale comes roughly one year after Nike shut down the unit, which it had acquired during the peak of the NFT boom. The company did not disclose the buyer or the financial terms of the transaction.

Nike added that it will continue investing in innovation across physical, digital, and virtual products, even as it steps back from standalone crypto initiatives.

Nike acquired RTFKT in 2021, at the height of NFT enthusiasm, as part of a push to expand its digital footprint. In December 2024, shortly after CEO Elliott Hill took charge, Nike announced plans to close the unit as it refocused on its core sports business and wholesale partnerships.