Top Retail News to Know This Week
This week’s retail news roundup looks at how Walmart, Amazon, and other major retailers compete for shoppers as AI, retail media, and changing customer habits put new pressure on the future of ecommerce and physical stores.
Walmart pushes deeper into Amazon territory: Walmart is gaining traction with faster delivery, lower prices, and Vizio-powered streaming ads, while Amazon is strengthening its delivery reach through a new USPS agreement.
AI shopping may force retailers to rethink the future of stores: New reports from McKinsey and Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) suggest AI-assisted shopping and ecommerce growth could accelerate store closures, pushing retailers to rethink whether stores should focus on convenience or creating in-person experiences that give people a reason to visit.
Self-checkout theft keeps creating problems for retailers: New survey shows more shoppers admit to intentionally or accidentally leaving stores with unpaid items, raising new questions about whether retailers can balance convenience with loss prevention.
Dive into this week’s retail news to see how the fight over delivery, advertising, AI, and rising self-checkout theft are changing ecommerce and in-store shopping.
Walmart’s Push Into Fast Delivery & Retail Media Raises Stakes for Amazon
Walmart and Amazon are increasingly borrowing from each other’s playbook as both race to become the default destination for everything, from groceries and household essentials to discretionary purchases, all backed by ultrafast delivery.
According to PYMNTS Intelligence, Walmart still leads in routine buys like groceries and daily essentials, while Amazon remains stronger in discretionary and discovery-driven categories (discovered through recommendations, influencers, ads, or search results) such as electronics, books, and hobby products.
No wonder both companies are aggressively expanding into each other’s strengths to capture a bigger share of consumer spending and keep shoppers inside their stores and platforms longer.
Walmart Turns Stores Into Fulfillment Hubs
According to the Financial Times, Walmart is testing ways to store third-party marketplace inventory directly inside some supercenters. This way, products can qualify for faster local delivery instead of shipping from distant fulfillment centers, similar to Amazon’s regional fulfillment model. The strategy gives Walmart sellers access to the same delivery speed advantages already used for groceries and household essentials.
That convenience already appears to be influencing shopping habits. Fast Company recently highlighted how one longtime Amazon Prime household started relying heavily on Walmart+ after discovering groceries, daily essentials, and even specialty items could arrive faster and cheaper than comparable Amazon orders, often without delivery fees. What began as occasional Walmart purchases reportedly turned into near-daily orders through the retailer’s app.
That kind of behavioral change is significant because repeat purchases create long-term shopping habits. Walmart wants a larger share of higher-margin online spending beyond groceries, while Amazon wants more recurring everyday purchases that keep customers continuously tied to its system. Hence why Amazon is pushing deeper into Walmart’s territory through one- to three-hour local delivery, expanded rural logistics, and growing interest in physical retail concepts that resemble supercenter-style shopping experiences.
Amazon also recently finalized a new agreement with USPS that reportedly preserves access to 80% of the carrier’s package volume. The deal allows Amazon to continue relying on USPS’s address-by-address network while expanding its own logistics operations.
Speed obviously plays a major role in this competition. Amazon continues expanding same-day delivery services to encourage more frequent and impulse-driven purchases. Walmart is responding by using its stores, fulfillment infrastructure, and curbside pickup network to make fast delivery feel just as convenient.
Walmart Wants More of Amazon’s Ad Business
The rivalry is also now spreading into retail media and shopper data. Walmart’s advertising business is growing faster than Amazon’s, and its latest ad tech launches show the company is trying to turn that momentum into a much larger challenge to its Amazon’s retail media dominance.
Scintilla Media Data Feed Connects Retail Data Directly to Ad Performance
Walmart’s new Scintilla Media Data Feed gives advertisers and their approved partners more direct access to Walmart’s first-party operational and retail data. Before Scintilla, advertisers often worked with incomplete retail data that made it harder to connect ad decisions to what was actually happening across Walmart’s online and in-store business.
Now, rather than focusing only on clicks, impressions, or conversions, advertisers can now connect media campaigns to a more complete set of retail signals:
Inventory levels
Sales velocity
Nil pick rates, or item not in location, which means the item is either out of stock or not in its designated spot
Omnichannel shopper behavior
The goal is to help advertisers make faster and more informed decisions based on real-time retail conditions across Walmart.
Walmart shared a case study where a consumer packaged goods brand used Scintilla data to identify ZIP codes where it was losing customers to competitors. After launching geo-targeted campaigns through Walmart DSP, the brand reportedly generated a 2.97% sales increase and achieved a 72% win-back rate among returning customers.
This kind of closed-loop retail data (ability to connect your ads to actual shopping behavior and sales results inside Walmart) could become increasingly important for advertisers, especially those looking to diversify traffic sources.
Walmart Makes Streaming TV Ads Easier to Buy
Walmart is also expanding beyond traditional search ads through Connect Select, a new connected TV advertising marketplace integrated into Walmart DSP.
Connect Select gives advertisers easier access to streaming TV inventory across Vizio and premium publishers like Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount. Walmart says the system is designed to simplify connected TV advertising for mid-sized businesses that may not have had easy access to streaming ad inventory before.
This is important because connected TV advertising gives Walmart another way to influence product discovery outside its own marketplace. By combining shopper data from Walmart purchases with streaming ad placements through Vizio, Walmart can build a stronger advertising network that follows consumers from entertainment viewing to product purchase.
Brands May Face Higher Costs Across Both Sales Channels
As both retail giants encroach further into each other’s territory, brands may face rising pressure to spend more on ads, faster delivery, and platform-specific strategies just to stay competitive in search rankings and product visibility.
At the same time, Walmart’s growing third-party marketplace and advertising network could give brands another path to reach customers outside Amazon’s increasingly expensive ad environment, especially for those willing to invest early before competition intensifies further.
Related Reading: A Deep Dive into Walmart Connect vs Amazon Ads
Retailers May Need to Redesign Physical Stores for the AI Era
Brick-and-mortar retailers may soon face a difficult question: what role do stores still play when AI can recommend products, automate repeat purchases, compare prices instantly, and even complete purchases before shoppers visit a website?
That question sits at the center of a growing debate across the retail industry as ecommerce growth, AI-powered shopping tools, rising operating costs, and self-checkout theft concerns place new pressure on the future of stores.
AI-Powered Shopping May Change How Customers Use Stores
New research from McKinsey & Company suggests that “the US retail landscape is entering a new era” where stores may remain important, but their purpose may change significantly as consumers rely more on AI for routine shopping decisions. Over time, AI tools could handle basket building, repeat purchases, and price comparisons, reducing one of the biggest reasons people visit stores in the first place: product discovery and comparison.
As those shopping habits evolve, retailers may need to become far more intentional about what each store is actually designed to do. McKinsey argues that retailers who fail to define the mission of each store “risk creating locations that are partially optimized for every mission and fully optimized for none.”
For instance, a store designed for convenience may need to focus on speed and fulfillment, while experience-driven stores may need to give shoppers stronger reasons to browse and spend time there, e.g., Dick’s Sporting Goods House of Sport that features rock climbing walls, batting cages, and turf fields. However, if a store tries to do everything at once, from fast fulfillment to immersive shopping experiences, it may end up doing none of them well.
Why Thousands of Stores Could Disappear
The pressure facing retailers is already starting to show up in store closure forecasts. Analysts at UBS estimate that more than 40,000 stores could close over the next five years as the following forces continue pulling sales away from physical retail locations.
Ecommerce capturing a larger share of retail spending.
AI-assisted shopping may further reduce in-store traffic.
Tariffs and rising costs may weaken consumer spending.
Smaller retailers face growing pressure from larger chains with stronger logistics networks.
Changing demographics and slower population growth could reduce long-term demand for excess retail space.
Department stores and specialty chains appear especially vulnerable, while large retailers with stronger fulfillment networks and pricing power, including Walmart, Costco, and Target, may continue consolidating market share. Physical stores still matter in this environment, but most likely as delivery hubs, pickup locations, or experiential destinations rather than purely transactional shopping spaces.
Self-Checkout Theft May Be Creating a Different Retail Problem
Yet even as retailers invest heavily in online channels to compete with ecommerce, another problem is growing inside stores themselves: theft tied to self-checkout systems.
New research from LendingTree shows both intentional and accidental self-checkout theft are rising sharply. According to the survey:
27% of self-checkout users admitted intentionally taking an item without scanning it, up from 15% in 2023.
36% admitted accidentally leaving with unscanned items.
55% of intentional offenders said they expect to steal again.
Self-checkout can make theft easier to dismiss as an honest mistake, but the findings also reflect growing frustration over inflation, tariffs, and rising living costs that may be pushing more consumers toward theft.
Retail leaders have already warned about the financial impact. Former Walmart CEO Doug McMillon told CNBC that rising theft could eventually lead to higher prices or store closures, while Target CEO Michael Fiddelke said inventory shrink could reduce Target’s profitability by more than $500 million if trends continued.
Some chains are already retreating from self-checkout expansion. Dollar General began removing self-checkout systems from stores after reporting major increases in shrink-related losses.
In summary, these retail industry trends reveal a growing reality for retailers that stores may need a stronger purpose beyond simply selling products. Stores built around convenience may require robust fulfillment systems and smoother online-to-store experiences, while experience-focused locations may need to give shoppers interactive activities to visit. Retailers may also need stronger loss prevention systems and smarter AI tools as physical stores face growing pressure to stay relevant.
SPS Commerce helps retailers catch inventory and supplier issues before they turn into bigger supply chain headaches. Explore how a Supply Chain Performance Assessment can give your team a better view of what’s working, what’s falling behind, and where operations may need attention.
Other Amazon Sellers News This Week
1. Amazon Opens Seller Café Bookings for New Seller Summit
Amazon is giving new sellers one-on-one access to specialists through Seller Café appointments at its upcoming New Seller Summit in Anaheim, California (May 20, 2026). Experts will help with account setup, listings, fulfillment, and compliance as selling on Amazon becomes increasingly complex. With appointments and early-bird pricing limited, you may want to act quickly.
2. Amazon Offers New Cross-Border Shipping Reimbursement for UK-to-EU Sellers
From now until June 30, 2026, Amazon is offering transportation fee reimbursements worth up to €240 per shipment for qualifying UK-to-EU pallet shipments through its Customs Clearance and Shipping Services (C2S2) Partner Carrier Programme. As cross-border logistics and customs costs continue eating into seller margins, these incentives could offer meaningful savings for sellers moving inventory into Europe.
3. Amazon Expands Omnichannel Metrics with Category-Level Ad Insights
Amazon is giving advertisers a clearer view of how DSP campaigns influence purchases across different product categories. The new Omnichannel Metrics update breaks down sales data by category, helping brands see which types of products their ads are actually driving purchases for. Brands with multiple product lines can use these insights to make smarter budget decisions and better optimize campaigns.
Retail Competition Is Becoming a Fight Over Speed and Data
This week’s retail news shows how competition is expanding beyond price into fulfillment speed, retail media, AI shopping, and operational efficiency, essentially changing how consumers buy products. For that reason, you may need to rethink how to compete across ecommerce and physical retail. A few strategies may become increasingly important:
Diversify beyond one platform: Walmart’s growing marketplace and ad tools may help you reach shoppers before competition and ad costs rise further.
Improve fulfillment and inventory accuracy: Faster delivery expectations may reward sellers with stronger stock availability and fulfillment performance.
Measure retail media more carefully: Focus more on sales and shopper behavior, not just clicks and impressions.
Give stores a clearer purpose: Convenience-focused stores may need a more solid fulfillment infrastructure, while experience-driven stores may need better reasons to encourage in-store shopping.
Strengthen self checkout theft prevention systems: Improve inventory tracking and operational visibility to minimize inventory shrinkage. SPS Commerce’s Supply Chain Performance Assessment can help you spot inventory and supply chain issues earlier before losses grow larger.
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