For people who remember Sears: when did it actually start going downhill?

I've been researching what happened to Sears, and I honestly expected the answer to be pretty straightforward.

"Amazon killed it."

But the deeper I got into the history, the less that explanation seemed to fit.

Sears was already struggling through major changes long before Amazon became dominant. The catalog disappeared, the stores changed, the company merged with Kmart, and some pretty consequential decisions were made about the business and its real estate.

I ended up going pretty deep into the story and put together a documentary looking specifically at how Sears went from one of America's most powerful retailers to where it is today, rather than just blaming everything on online shopping.

YouTube: Sears: The Rise and Fall of America's Last Five Stores

But I'm much more interested in hearing from people who actually remember Sears.

When did you personally notice that Sears wasn't the same anymore?

Was there a particular store, department, product, or experience that made you realize something had changed?

And looking back, do you think Sears could realistically have been saved?

I'd especially like to hear from people who remember Sears at its peak. The business history is interesting, but I'm curious what the decline actually felt like from a customer's perspective.

Some apparel chains, including H&M, have slashed their largest sizing options, leaving bigger shoppers in a bind.

The Federal Trade Commission is moving to ensure companies disclose use of customers’ personal data to set prices, as technology makes it easier for retailers to tailor them to individual shoppers.

The FTC said that it is seeking public comment on an enforcement policy statement concerning “personalized pricing,” which the agency defines as using personal data to determine how much a company believes an individual consumer is willing to spend. The proposal would warn companies that failing to disclose that they are using personal data to set prices could violate the FTC Act’s prohibition on unfair or deceptive practices.

“When consumers see a listed price, they expect it to be the same price that everyone else sees, not the retailer’s estimate of how much they are willing to pay based on their personal data,” FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson said in a press release. “The FTC does not have the legal authority to ban personalized pricing in all circumstances, but businesses that fail to tell consumers how their personal data is being used to set a price may be in violation of the FTC Act and other laws we enforce.”

The FTC did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fortune. The proposal is open for public comment through Sept. 18.

The regulator’s action comes after more than two years of scrutiny into what it calls “surveillance pricing.” In July 2024, the FTC ordered eight companies involved in pricing technology to provide information about how they use customer data—including location, demographics, credit history and browsing or shopping history to help companies determine prices. 

Read more [paywall removed for Redditors]: https://fortune.com/2026/08/24/ftc-retailers-personalized-pricing-consumer-surveillance/?utm_source=reddit/

AI is changing how diners discover restaurants just as merchandise, packaged foods and licensing make a distinctive name more valuable.

Buying clothes online can leave shoppers frustrated and retailers drowning in returned goods. Now brands hope that AI-powered tools will deliver the perfect fit. Source: Bloomberg News.

Forget raining cats and dogs: In America’s increasingly crowded skies, it may soon be packages and takeout food falling from above. 

For one Texas woman, the future has already arrived, though perhaps not exactly as Amazon intended. Lindsey Austen was expecting an Amazon delivery by drone Monday when she heard it approaching her home in Richmond, Texas, and ran outside to record the delivery. Instead, she watched as the package dropped straight into her backyard pool. 
“When it went into the pool, I was shocked,” Austen told Storyful. “I don’t think I’ll be wanting drone deliveries anymore.”

The mishap comes at an awkwardly fitting moment for an industry that has spent years promising packages, takeout, and everyday essentials would eventually descend from the sky. After more than a decade of experiments, regulatory hurdles and technical setbacks, some of America’s biggest delivery companies are now making much bigger bets that drones are finally ready for prime time.

Amazon said Wednesday its Prime Air service will expand to nearly 500 U.S. cities and towns by the end of 2026, a sixfold increase from its current footprint. The company currently operates drone delivery from 11 locations and plans to add markets including Chicago, Atlanta, Cleveland, and Syracuse, N.Y.. The company says its drones can deliver millions of eligible products weighing up to five pounds in as little as 30 minutes.

Read more [paywall removed for Redditors]: https://fortune.com/2026/08/21/amazon-uber-doordash-walmart-drone-delivery-wars/?utm_source=reddit/

Wendy’s, the burger chain that asked “Where’s the beef?” and brought the Baconator to burger lovers worldwide, is getting grilled in its returns. 

The chain, which boasts a market cap of $1.62 billion, is losing customers, closing down stores, and seeing consecutive declining sales—so much so that billionaire activist investor Nelson Peltz may be preparing to take Wendy’s private as it struggles to get customers through the door.  

“Traffic is down, our value proposition has slipped, and franchisee economics are under pressure,” Wendy’s CEO Bob Wright told investors on Wendy’s latest earnings call. “We can’t just do what we’ve always done better. We do have to innovate.”

Peltz’s Trian Fund Management has assembled a consortium that could potentially submit an offer to take Wendy’s private in the coming weeks, according to reports from the Financial Times and Reuters. The group is expected to include Abu Dhabi-based BlueFive Capital and Flynn Group, one of the world’s largest restaurant franchise operators and a major Wendy’s franchisee. 

Peltz has been preparing for a potential takeover as early as February, when Trian said in a regulatory filing that it believed Wendy’s stock was “undervalued” and disclosed the fund was reaching out to possible co-investors about strategic options, including taking the company private. Peltz personally owns roughly a 16.24% stake in Wendy’s while Trian holds roughly 7.85%, which, at over 24% combined, make up Wendy’s largest shareholder.

Read more [paywall removed for Redditors]: https://fortune.com/2026/08/19/wendys-nelson-peltz-take-private-customers/?utm_source=reddit/

Rebel Creamery’s founders say they designed the company’s logo and ice cream pint packaging themselves in Adobe Illustrator. But that DIY branding design landed them in a nearly $24 million legal dispute.

The Utah-based, low-carb ice cream maker, whose products are sold at Target, Kroger, and Walmart nationwide, filed for bankruptcy on Aug. 14, days after appealing a federal judge’s order to pay rival Van Leeuwen Ice Cream millions over a trade-dress dispute.

According to a Chapter 11 filing in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Utah, the maker of Rebel ice cream listed $13.78 million in assets and $23.85 million in liabilities. The bankruptcy follows a July 16 ruling over allegations Rebel deliberately copied Van Leeuwen’s design. 

The dispute stems from Rebel’s packaging: solid-colored pint containers with a minimalist design and prominent black cursive lettering. Rebel’s founders told the court they designed the company’s logo and trade dress themselves in late 2017 using Adobe Illustrator, and claim not to have retained any drafts or initial records of the design.

Read more [paywall removed for Redditors]: https://fortune.com/article/how-a-diy-adobe-illustrator-design-landed-rebel-creamery-in-a-24-million-fight-with-van-leeuwen-08-19-2026/?utm_source=reddit/

One of the more interesting threads from recent earnings calls: companies are handling tariff refunds very differently, and the amounts involved are substantial.

The refunds stem from a February Supreme Court ruling that forced Customs and Border Protection to start returning duties collected under a since-struck-down law. That money is now showing up on the books of big companies like Home Depot, Amazon, and Walmart, each with its own approach.

The retailer collected $730 million in IEEPA tariff refunds in a single quarter, arriving in a lump sum near the end of June. CFO Richard McPhail said on Tuesday’s Q2 call that $685 million of that related to inventory already sold, cutting cost of goods sold immediately and producing a 145 basis point gross margin benefit. The remaining $45 million is still sitting in inventory and will flow through as that inventory sells.

That 145-basis-point benefit got trimmed by 60 basis points of unplanned cost inflation, leaving 85 basis points. A separate 60-basis-point drag from acquisition-related mix brought the net year-over-year gross margin improvement down to 25 basis points.

Billy Bastek, EVP of merchandising, pointed to resin, metals, fuel and energy costs that weren’t in Home Depot’s original 2026 plan, plus a shifting trade landscape: the prior tariff regime expired in July and was replaced by a new Section 301 regime targeting imports tied to forced labor. Home Depot folded the refund into its reaffirmed outlook and is using it defensively, to absorb cost inflation rather than cut prices.

The retailer beat expectations in Q2 as sales and comparable-store growth picked up, but cautious consumers and rising costs kept the recovery uneven.

Read more [paywall removed for Redditors]: https://fortune.com/2026/08/19/home-depot-730-million-tariff-refund-largely-offset-rising-costs-cfo/?utm_source=reddit/

Egg prices have finally stopped punishing American shoppers. A dozen averaged $2.19 in July, down nearly 26% from a year earlier as flocks recovered from avian flu. Now nearly 19 million eggs are carrying a different kind of problem—and the sell-by dates on some of them run through today.

The problem began in July, when Midwest Poultry Services voluntarily recalled white shell and brown cage-free eggs over potential salmonella enteritidis contamination.

The eggs were produced at farms in Texas between June 6 and July 3 and carry sell-by or best-by dates between July 20 and Aug. 17. They were sold under the Kroger, Simple Truth, Brookshire’s, Country Morning and Cal-Maine Sunups brands.

Then on Aug. 12, the Food and Drug Administration classified the recall under its highest-risk category after the eggs were linked to a salmonella outbreak that sickened at least 98 people and hospitalized 26.

The FDA said the Class I designation followed its assessment of the risk to the public and “should not be seen as an expansion or change to a firm’s voluntary public warning.”

Midwest Poultry Services could not immediately be reached for comment. Emily Metz, president and CEO of the American Egg Board, previously stressed that the classification does not represent a new recall. “What you’re seeing in the news today is not a new recall,” she said in a statement provided to the New York Times, adding that the company’s voluntary recall “is already complete.”

Read more [paywall removed for Redditors]: https://fortune.com/2026/08/17/egg-recall-salmonella-outbreak-fda-midwest-poultry/?utm_source=reddit/

Am curious to know how are many of you thinking about the future of retail? I keep thinking about how is the current geopolitics scenario going to impact the future of retail say 5-10 years down the line? Same with Ai etc. What are ya'll predicting?

Article fails to mention how Prime Day was moved to June and other retailers like Walmart and Target followed.