Beginning next week, Walmart and Target will both have new top leaders for the first time in more than a decade, but the two former leaders leave behind two very different legacies.

Tariffs

Brands Briefing: Founders hope for a ‘dependable and stable’ 2026 after the chaos of 2025 

January 20, 2026

As brands plan for 2026, they are determined to not have their growth initiatives upended by another year of macroeconomic uncertainty.

‘Quitting wasn’t an option’: How tariffs took an emotional and financial toll on founders in 2025

December 30, 2025

Many founders had to completely upend their business models in 2025 due to tariffs, resorting to production delays, raising prices and putting off hiring to save their businesses.

Other news to know

Top Stories Jan 30

Marketplace Briefing: Why Amazon keeps opening and closing different grocery concepts

January 29, 2026

Amazon has spent more than a decade investing in physical retail, particularly grocery — but the company has yet to find a store format that works.

Exclusive: Some TikTok Shop sellers are pulling back as the platform moves to end independent shipping in the U.S.

January 28, 2026

TikTok Shop’s move to end independent shipping is pushing some U.S. brands to scale back or exit the platform.

Follett is making a bigger push into private-label merch at its college bookstores

January 29, 2026

Follett Higher Education, which runs roughly 1,000 campus bookstores, aims to have a quarter of its selection be private-label products.

Popflex’s Cassey Ho is taking dupes of her viral skort and turning them into DIY fashion kits

January 29, 2026

Popflex founder Cassey Ho is launching an upcycling project that repurposes seized dupe skorts into DIY fashion kits.

Tariffs

‘Quitting wasn’t an option’: How tariffs took an emotional and financial toll on founders in 2025

December 30, 2025

Many founders had to completely upend their business models in 2025 due to tariffs, resorting to production delays, raising prices and putting off hiring to save their businesses.

The winners and losers of tariffs

December 29, 2025

This year, tariffs kicked in at their highest rate since the Great Depression, completely upending the retail industry. In turn, Modern Retail rounded up the biggest winners and losers of all the changes in tariff policy this year.

The year of Thriftmas: Why secondhand gifts could finally go mainstream this holiday season

December 16, 2025

Secondhand gifts are shedding their stigma this holiday season as shoppers, squeezed by tariffs and inflation, turn to thrift stores and resale platforms for thoughtful, lower-cost presents.

Podcasts

Technology

Marketplace Briefing: Shopify President Harley Finkelstein on why AI shopping ‘can’t just scrape information’ 

January 22, 2026

Shopify merchants saw a 14x increase in orders coming from AI agents over the past year, as agentic shopping gains traction, Shopify President Harley Finkelstein told Modern Retail.

Sam’s Club aims to make free samples more measurable using kiosks, tablets

January 22, 2026

Sam’s Club has been making significant changes to how its free-sample kiosks operate within the company — pointing to its confidence in the machines and free samples, in general, as advertising drivers.

How brands and retailers are planning their marketing spend during the holiday season to avoid diminishing returns

November 06, 2025

Bradley Keefer, CRO, Keen Decision Systems Despite the emergence of October sales events and December’s strong sales performance last year, Black Friday remains the premier event for retailers. Last year, the NRF found that an estimated 197 million consumers, up from their initial prediction of 183.4 million, shopped during the five-day holiday weekend between Thanksgiving […]

Marketing

What’s In Your Cart?: E.l.f. Beauty’s Chief Brand Officer Laurie Lam on her obsession with black sesame, hotel experiences and NYC-friendly heels

January 27, 2026

In the latest installment of “What’s in Your Cart,” E.l.f. Beauty’s Chief Brand Officer, Laurie Lam, shares her personal shopping habits with Modern Retail.

Behind Pacsun’s strategy for keeping a pulse on the changing tastes of Gen Z

January 21, 2026

Pacsun is using data from focus groups and surveys to better tailor its product releases, marketing and tech to Gen-Z shoppers.

Avocados From Mexico turns to AI to advertise around the Super Bowl instead of a TV buy

January 19, 2026

For the third year in a row, Avocados From Mexico is returning to the Super Bowl with a digital play; its Prediction Pit is built on a predictive AI system that offers real-time football predictions, as well as custom guacamole recipes.

Operations

At Starbucks, a Bearista collectible and a record-setting Red Cup Day drive foot traffic resurgence

January 29, 2026

Under CEO Brian Niccol’s Back to Starbucks plan, Starbucks has doubled down on limited-edition products and exclusive in-store collaborations, which helped traffic bounce back in fiscal Q1.

Rhone debuts resale site built on customer returns

January 28, 2026

Rhone is turning one common retail headache into a growth lever. It’s using customer returns to power its new resale site, ReRhone.

The next retail advantage is hiding in merchants’ payments systems

January 16, 2026

Cori Voorhees, partner marketing manager, Adobe The start of a new year often brings a shift in focus for merchants. As the urgency of peak shopping season fades, teams turn their attention to how their systems and technology performed. It’s a moment to look beyond seasonal results and examine the infrastructure that supported them. Payments […]