Memorial Day 2026: One Holiday, Two Customers in Your Store
AAA projects 45 million Memorial Day travelers — but 40% of lower-income households can’t afford to go anywhere. Two very different customers will walk into your store this weekend.
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Ownership Compounds — Weekly Retail Tidbits #249
Five years of merchandising cards taught me what compounds when one person owns a section of the store. Plus: the full Tango lineup as of May 2026 — four new lines have joined since January.
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Compendium Fall 2026: The Catalog Is Here + Product Videos
Compendium’s Fall 2026 release is here. Eight short videos from Carly’s team — Sloth Plush, Hedgehog Plush, The Ripple Effect, the Grandma/Grandpa pair, and four more — and how I’d pitch each one in a TN/KY store.
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The One Thing AI Still Can’t Do (And You Do Every Day)
Tacit knowledge — what your team notices in conversation — is your store’s moat. Here’s how to capture it before it evaporates.
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If the NYT Can’t Catch AI Slop, You Won’t Either
The NYT just quoted words a politician never said — an AI hallucination. Three checks every retailer should run on AI-written copy before publishing.
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What Mother’s Day Shoppers Are Asking ChatGPT This Year
ChatGPT just became smarter overnight, and your Mother’s Day customer is using it. What that means for your product page copy this weekend.
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Your Store Has Five Landlords — Weekly Retail Tidbits #248
Last week I said the stack is the moat. This week: how much of your stack do you actually own? Five landlords every independent retailer has — and one fix per landlord.
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Trusted Software Got Hacked. Here’s Your Quiet Fix.
Fake software installers signed with real certificates infected thousands of computers this week. Here’s the five-minute passkey upgrade every shop owner should make on World Passkey Day.
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Maryland’s Surveillance Pricing Ban: What It Means
Maryland just passed a law that will quietly reshape American retail. Starting October, the biggest grocery stores in the state — anything over 15,000 square feet — can no longer show different prices to different shoppers based on data the store collected about them. A gallon of milk will cost the same to every shopper…
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AI Doesn’t Bookmark Your Store. It Re-Picks Every Week.
An SEO researcher counted something this week that I keep turning over: when AI tools like ChatGPT or Google’s AI answer a customer’s question, they don’t use the same sources two weeks in a row. ChatGPT swaps out roughly three of every four sources every single week. Google’s AI swaps out about half. In plain…
