Minneapolis Bluesky -- there's a reporter on my team (@modernretail.bsky.social) looking to talk to current or ex Target employees about yesterday's layoffs. If you or anyone else you know might be interested, DM me or email me at [email protected]. Happy to talk under the condition of anonymity

Have you gotten a surprise tariff bill after ordering from a foreign site? Don't expect the issue to slow down anytime soon www.modernretail.co/operations/w...

Quince customers say they are receiving tariff bills from FedEx sometimes days or weeks after receiving their orders. Quince says it's an error on FedEx's end, and customers are not responsible for it www.modernretail.co/operations/q...

Are shoppers still boycotting Target, and exactly how much is it hurting the company given everything else that's going on? Here's my feature that attempts to answer the question -- give it a read! www.modernretail.co/operations/a...

Godspeed to every brand that hasn't put out any Love Island content to date and is now frantically trying to come up with something funny to post on social media before the finale

Kenny So, the co-owner of 30-year-old Chalice Collectibles, has seen fads come and go from Beanie Babies to Jellycats. But he says he's never seen anything like the fervor around Labubus. More here on the crazy prices that Labubus are fetching on resale sites www.modernretail.co/marketing/th...

Can sales of lipstick and men's underwear really tell us whether or not we are headed for a recession? On the latest episode of the Modern Retail Podcast, we debunk popular retail recession indicators. This was a fun one to record! www.modernretail.co/operations/m...

I wrote about how small business owners are going on a media blitz right now warning about how catastrophic these tariffs will be if they're not changed www.modernretail.co/operations/c...

Breaking news, if Bluesky cares about this! Kohl's has stopped Amazon returns at some locations -- it appears to be a test, and may just be temporary for now www.modernretail.co/retailers/ko...

“Holding a Loko can means being wild, sharing insane moments with friends and really creating your own epic story." Four Loko is back (actually, it turns out they never left, just removed the caffeine) and is trying to reinvent itself for Gen Z www.modernretail.co/marketing/in...

Today in asinine food discourse: someone who is upset to learn that Chick-fil-a (allegedly) uses MSG, preservatives, artificial dyes, trans fats and more because they thought Chick-fil-a was "OK." Yes, once fast food stops using MSG, then it will be healthy

If you are a millennial who wants to relive the early aughts, Limited Too is here for you -- once a favorite of teens and tweens during the early 200s, Limited Too relaunched last year and is now creating collections for adults, like a line of Zodiac-themed tees www.modernretail.co/marketing/li...

Every critique of White Lotus is like "as someone who is rich or knows rich people this is NOT how this specific type of rich person would act"

When you open a pack of batteries, you've probably gotten used to to ripping open the cardboard back, before trying to keep the batteries from tumbling out of the plastic cavity. But now, Energizer and Duracell are ditching this packaging. Here's why. www.modernretail.co/operations/w...

Happy for da birds

if i text you this just know you’re cooked

I don't really care about astrological signs at all, but I do jokingly chalk up the fact that I care a lot about fairness to being a Libra. And boy, it sure is hard right now to be a person who cares about fairness

Calling it now: the tech MAGA folks are going to be the last true believers

On Tuesday, avid readers rejoiced as Bookshop.org said it would begin selling e-books. By mid-day Tuesday, the company said it was on track to sell over $30,000 in e-books on its first day and also netted about 2,000 new customers. www.modernretail.co/technology/h...

Things have been so busy that I forgot the football playoffs were still going on and that’s how I became one of those people who googled “what time is the Super Bowl”

I know some people who deleted TikTok on Saturday who now can’t redownload it even though it’s “back” because it’s not in the App Store. I saw other on Instagram say they won’t use the app now after the messages they’ve posted thanking president Trump

Brands are among the "TikTok refugees" flocking to RedNote. But it's just a knee-jerk reaction. www.modernretail.co/technology/b...

Inflation is fueling price paranoia. That can play. out in a number of ways -- someone with price paranoia might not trust that a retailer is offering them the best price on an item. However you define it, anxieties around pricing will be a defining theme in 2025 www.modernretail.co/marketing/ho...

3 headlines on inflation: Core inflation slows to 3.2% in December, less than expected www.cnbc.com/2025/01/15/c... Inflation sped up in December, a fresh challenge for the Fed www.nytimes.com/2025/01/15/b... Inflation offers crumbs of comfort, big banks report www.reuters.com/markets/us/g...

Mark but no Priscilla?

It’s amazing what people will willingly tell reporters; that they didn’t either placed an Amazon Fresh order, for at the very least, didn’t cancel it in the middle of a wildfire

Did you recently try to return an item, only to realize it was a final sale? Now, you might get a nudge to resell it on Poshmark. A returns processor is teaming up with Poshmark, adding a "Resell on Poshmark" button to the returns portals of nearly 3,300 retailers www.modernretail.co/technology/p...

I know we are a couple days past the cooking discourse now but I saw someone on TikTok claim they physically heave if they have to eat the same meal more than two days in a row

I see a lot of food startup CEOs cheering on the MAHA movement (or at least, saying things like "I'm all for more people reading labels.") But thing I don't see talked about enough is how the backlash against "ultra-processed foods" could hurt them. Protein bars are ultra-processed foods.

The reason why no one is covering this is because there are numerous examples of companies that have invested in these things over the years, and then abandoned them as economic cycles have changed and investing in something that doesn't directly drive revenue no longer makes as much sense

A rarity: A medical provider determined that they owed ME money

*Clears throat* It was the week before Christmas when, all throughout retail, businesses were hustling to drive just one more sale. But those that had lost market share were putting the finishing touches on their Chapter 11s — with care. www.modernretail.co/operations/p...

Big day for companies to announce price increases — Xcel Energy sent out this email announcing that they are pushing for a rate increase for Minnesota customers which on average would add nearly $10 a month to people’s electric bills

I wrote something a little more personal about how my thinking around change has evolved over the past couple of years-- I hope this is helpful for people overwhelmed thinking about the New Year! open.substack.com/pub/annahens...

After much googling I finally found this segment, and the bakery in question. It does sound like they have amazing prices — you can get loaves of bread for like $1-$2.40. But I have a lot of questions about this segment still

The line at the Patina in Highland Park is ten people deep as everyone’s here shopping for last-minute Christmas gifts

"You smiled at your gym crush 2,498 times and still never spoke to them" said one social media post from Gymshark. Every brand is itching to create its own version of Spotify Wrapped, posting tongue-in-cheek year-end recaps on social media. But some fall flat www.modernretail.co/marketing/wh...

Waking up in the morning thinking about so many things (Haven, Maximillian, Buster, Blue, Trooper, Teak, Goliath, Rooster, Cabo)

I got pitched by a PR firm to talk to someone about, among other topics, the M&A outlook for 2025. I replied and said sounds great, I'm actually working on a story on the M&A outlook for 2025 so this is perfect fit. Now they want more info on the angle of my story and what questions I want to ask

Next step: love is…unionized? www.nytimes.com/2024/12/11/a...

PayPal wants you to think of Venmo as more than just the service you use when you need to send someone $20 for your portion of the happy hour bill. PayPal has subtly tried to get more merchants to accept Venmo as a form of payment www.modernretail.co/technology/h...

New low: A PR firm asked us to correct quotes that weren't in a story. Like the quotes they said were in the story literally weren't in the story at all. Is this the result of some AI hallucination? I also couldn't find the alleged quotes anywhere else on Google

Finally, a story that fits the overlapping interests of my retail followers and cyclist followers! Here's a podcast interview we did at Modern Retail with the CEO of Upway, about how the company is trying to better serve the U.S. e-bike market www.modernretail.co/technology/h...

There are times when you don't need to include stock prices in a story

There's a body scrub too? Make it stop

Each year, more startups rediscover holiday catalogs www.modernretail.co/marketing/br...

It’s a rule that if you put a bunch of disparate things in the same Amazonorder the least exciting thing always arrives first (in my case food storage containers) while the most exciting thing arrives last (in my case candy)

Serial returners have become a thorn in the side of retailers. Thanks to Amazon, people have come to expect free, generous return windows. But how do you maintain these return windows while also cracking down on people who abuse the system? www.modernretail.co/operations/r...

Nike is shutting down a virtual sneaker brand it acquired at the height of the NFT boom www.businessoffashion.com/articles/tec...

I tried to use my hair dryer to dry the inside of a pair of fleece lined gloves but I guess I didn’t leave enough air and it got too hot and I melted the coating on the hair dryer 😭