Artificial intelligence — especially agentic AI —  is making traditional category management smarter.

The Paris prosecutor’s office has opened investigations into Shein, as well as rival online retailers AliExpress, Temu and Wish, over the sale of the sex dolls.

The holiday season now rewards precision over speed. The brands that plan early, communicate clearly, and set prices honestly will win loyalty long after the presents are opened. 

Walmart plans to use RFID labels to provide digital use-by dates to monitor the freshness of its offerings across its meat, bakery and deli departments.

Beyond hunkering down in firefighting mode, it’s just as important that companies take a longer view of things.

Whirlpool, which manufactures almost 80% of its major product lines for the U.S. market domestically, could eventually benefit from tariffs if import-driven competition eases.

In effect, the U.S. has now accepted a negotiating link between its own curbs on high-tech exports, like AI chips, and China’s rare earth controls.

The results were buoyed by the enduring strength of consumer spending online, despite tariffs and an uneven economy, and by a resurgence in cloud computing.

Tootsie Roll Lollipops saw the biggest price bump at 34%, following by Tootsie Roll variety packs at 32%, and Hershey variety packs at 22%.

Although the layoffs represent a small portion of Amazon’s global workforce of 1.55 million employees, the figure represents a significant part of its roughly 350,000 corporate employees.