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BonBon, a New York-based Swedish candy company known for its cult following, is expanding into major retail with launches at Target and FAO Schwarz. The brand's creative director says maintaining tight, hand-driven design control is central to preserving its Swedish candy identity as it scales into big-box retail.
Google has rolled out new infrastructure aimed at supporting agentic commerce, where AI agents complete purchases on behalf of users. A payments infrastructure veteran notes that the underlying payment systems for this technology remain unresolved, echoing a recurring pattern where new commerce tech launches on rails not built for it.
In a Fast Company interview, Walmart U.S. President and CEO David Guggina described how the retailer is combining its extensive store footprint, supply chain infrastructure, e-commerce operations and customer data into one integrated system. He argued this convergence lets Walmart respond faster to shifting customer needs and extract greater value from its existing assets.
Amazon has raised the minimum hourly wage for its frontline warehouse staff by $1, bringing starting pay to $20 an hour just as the company enters its busiest shopping period. The change affects hundreds of thousands of workers across its fulfillment network.
Medical apparel retailer Scrubs & Beyond is shutting down every one of its more than 100 physical stores spread across 30 states. The company has given no public reason for the closures, and as of Wednesday its customer service phone line had been disconnected.
Mixue, the Chinese soft-serve and tea chain founded by brothers Zhang Hongchao and Zhang Hongfu, now operates more than 47,000 stores worldwide, more than McDonald's, per the Wall Street Journal. The company built its footprint by targeting smaller Chinese cities and towns with cheap products, such as 45-cent cones, rather than competing in major urban markets. Mixue recently went public in Hong Kong and is valued around $10 billion.
The September 14, 2026 episode of 9to5Mac Daily covers recent changes to Apple's retail operations along with details on iPhone 18 Pro pre-orders. The podcast, hosted by Chance, summarizes these top Apple stories for listeners across platforms like Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn, and Google Play.
Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports Apple is speeding up renovations across its retail stores with three key changes: new dedicated 'Avenue' sections for order pickups and Today at Apple sessions, removal of large video walls at the back of stores, and the return of standalone Genius Bars in place of the Genius Grove format used for over a decade.
L.L. Bean's new CEO has directed $50 million toward renovating the company's flagship store in Maine, redesigning it to emphasize immersive, tactile experiences over standard product displays. The revamped space greets visitors with elements like live fish rather than leading with clothing or footwear collections.
Target is introducing a redesigned beauty section called Beauty Studio in 600 stores starting September 10, replacing the shopping experience previously tied to its Ulta partnership. The move marks a reinvention of one of the retailer's key store areas as that partnership winds down.
A growing number of individual investors are using generative AI to write custom trading scripts and delegate portfolio decisions to automated agents, effectively mimicking strategies once reserved for professional quant funds. This trend, sometimes called 'vibe-coding,' lets non-programmers describe a trading idea in plain language and have AI translate it into executable code.
Target is again drawing criticism over a Halloween costume in its seasonal lineup, just under two weeks after apologizing for a separate children's costume that critics compared to blackface caricatures. This time, the retailer is not the only company implicated in the controversy, as other sellers are reportedly facing similar accusations.