Consumer Staples Merchandise Retail

Webuy Global said on Friday it received a Nasdaq notice after its Class A shares closed below $1 for 30 consecutive business days from July 31 to Sept. 11, violating the exchange's minimum bid price requirement.

Two U.S. senators have asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate shopping-assistant AI from Amazon.com and Walmart. In a letter to the FTC, Senators Tammy Baldwin and Rick Scott said Amazon's Alexa for Shopping and Walmart's Sparky may exclude American-made products from what they display or fail to detect false labeling, undermining U.S. manufacturing and misleading consumers. The senators cited research from a think tank led by former FTC Chair Lina Khan, which found that these AIs provide information about products made in China and other countries while suppressing information about American-made goods. The letter cites that research and notes that when Alexa was asked why there was no made-in-USA filter, it replied that doing so would "take away considerable sales from our largest seller base" and referred to overseas manufacturers. An Amazon spokesperson said the claim that the company deliberately withholds country-of-origin information is fundamentally wrong, and explained that Alexa for Shopping is a service that is continuously improving and that, to prioritize accuracy, it currently directs customers who ask about country of origin to the product detail page. The FTC declined to comment, and Walmart did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters.

Senators Tammy Baldwin and Rick Scott are asking the Federal Trade Commission to investigate whether Walmart and Amazon are doing enough to keep foreign-made products from being mislabeled as "Made in the USA." The letter to the FTC asks the agency to examine how Walmart's Sparky and Amazon's Alexa AI shopping chatbots verify products' country of origin. It cites a study from Columbia University's Center for Law and Economy, which found that both companies have the technical capability to detect and flag "Made in USA" fraud, and that Amazon's Alexa blocks answers to questions about "Made in USA" products while allowing equivalent questions about products that were "Made in China." The study says these shortcomings let third-party sellers falsely claim merchandise was made in the U.S., and that both chatbots describe the inaction as a business decision rather than a technical limitation. Last year, the FTC wrote to both companies about third-party sellers falsely claiming their products were made in the U.S., in violation of the agency's 2021 "Made in USA" labeling rule. Walmart and Amazon have not yet responded to Seeking Alpha's request for comment.

Dollar General executives said the retailer expects its core customers to remain under pressure through the second half of 2026, as sustained inflation and higher fuel prices push shoppers to visit more often but buy fewer items per trip. Chief Executive Officer Todd Vasos said the core consumer, generally those earning $40,000 to $45,000 or less, is cutting basket sizes, and that middle- and upper-middle-income shoppers are showing similar behavior, with some customers earning more than $100,000 saying they no longer feel like high-income consumers. The company is leaning on value, offering more than 2,000 items priced at $1 or less, and said Value Valley comparable sales rose 16% in the second quarter, while its seasonal $1 assortment for the second half is up 40% from a year earlier. Delivery contributed 40 basis points to second-quarter comparable-sales growth and has introduced more than 1 million customers to the retailer's stores, and Dollar General plans to pilot a delivery subscription offering at the end of 2026. Chief Financial Officer Donny Lau said the company remains confident in its 2028 targets of 2% to 3% same-store sales growth and a 6% to 7% operating margin, and Vasos said he will leave the CEO role in January 2027, with JJ Fleeman, formerly a U.S. operating chief executive within Ahold Delhaize, selected as his successor.

Costco Wholesale Corp. is raising motor oil prices and limiting purchases as supply pressure builds in energy markets. The bulk seller of common products through its membership warehouses is making what amounts to a tiny adjustment within its huge business, but the timing makes it worth watching. Energy markets have been under pressure, and rising oil prices could eventually reach consumers at the gas pump, in shipping costs and on store shelves. Costco's reputation rests largely on keeping prices low for members, so when costs rise the company must decide how much of the increase to absorb and how much to pass on to buyers. The purchase restrictions suggest Costco would rather keep goods on hand than risk some consumers buying exceptionally large amounts. The key question is whether this is an isolated incident; if similar price increases surface on more products, Costco buyers could feel rising energy costs far more broadly, which is the next thing investors should watch.

Target announced Tuesday that its fall Target Circle Deal Days event will run October 6-7, setting it directly against Amazon's Prime Big Deal Days shopping event. The retailer will offer Target Circle members up to 40% off thousands of products across fall apparel, home décor, kitchen tools, beauty, toys, technology, and early holiday merchandise, while Target Circle 360 members can begin shopping select offers on October 5. Promoted offers include 40% off select family apparel and outdoor holiday décor, 30% off selected Threshold furniture and Hearth & Hand with Magnolia products, discounts on select Dyson vacuums, and savings of up to 40% on toys, laptops, and other tech. The Minneapolis-based company said the event is aimed at budget-conscious seasonal shopping and at recruiting and deepening loyalty membership. The annual fall sales event evolved from Target Circle Week, a longer loyalty-sale format; in fall 2025 Target held a seven-day Circle Week from October 5-11 featuring discounts of up to 50% and daily deals. Shares of Target were down 2.0% in Tuesday afternoon trading.

Walmart is expected to post earnings of $0.63 per share for the current quarter, a change of +1.6% from the year-ago quarter, while the Zacks Consensus Estimate has moved -6.2% over the last 30 days. For the current fiscal year, the consensus earnings estimate of $2.87 points to a change of +8.7% from the prior year and has changed -0.4% over the last 30 days, and for the next fiscal year the consensus estimate of $3.22 indicates a change of +12.3% and has changed -1.2% over the past month. On revenue, the consensus sales estimate of $186.47 billion for the current quarter points to a year-over-year change of +3.9%, while the $750.78 billion and $782.89 billion estimates for the current and next fiscal years indicate changes of +5.3% and +4.3%, respectively. Walmart reported revenues of $187.94 billion in the last reported quarter, up +5.9% year over year, with EPS of $0.81 versus $0.68 a year ago, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $186.26 billion by +0.9% on revenue and posting an EPS surprise of +10.96%. Based on the size of the recent consensus estimate change and three other earnings-estimate factors, Walmart is rated Zacks Rank #3 (Hold), and it is graded D on the Zacks Value Style Score, indicating it trades at a premium to its peers.

Jefferies warned that six consumer stocks could be disrupted by a Super El Niño this year and into 2027, part of a larger multi-sector list of names the firm identified as at risk. Current forecasts suggest the 2026-27 El Niño may be the strongest in modern history, and the firm noted that, unlike most climate risks, El Niño is highly trackable months in advance, giving investors an opportunity to identify economic consequences before they fully materialize. Analyst Scott Marks said Hershey carries concentrated cocoa exposure through its core U.S. chocolate portfolio and has built its 2027 margin recovery plan around expected cocoa deflation, warning that a Super El Niño driving a hotter, drier West African 2026/27 crop would undercut the central pillar of that recovery story. J.M. Smucker is exposed through its coffee portfolio, with sourcing potentially impacted for Brazilian arabica and Vietnamese and Indonesian robusta, while Mondelez International faces El Niño exposure through cocoa, with roughly 60% of supply in Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana, where strong events historically turn hotter and drier heading into the November-January harvest. Analyst Pedro Baptista noted PriceSmart derives approximately 11% of sales from Colombia and also operates across Central America, and analyst Anne Ling said Yum China could see extreme rainfall, flooding and adverse weather temporarily reduce dine-in traffic and disrupt logistics and delivery efficiency, while analyst Alex Wright highlighted that a sharp rise in sweetener costs could pressure margins at Coca-Cola FEMSA if cost increases outpace pricing actions.

Costco has raised the price of its Kirkland Signature full-synthetic motor oil to $57.99 for a 10-quart case and begun capping purchases at two units per member per week, as a global lubricant shortage tied to the Middle East conflict pushes crude oil toward $100 a barrel. The retailer has also imposed a five-per-member limit on Mobil 1, with six quarts of that brand running $44. The squeeze traces to the refinery, where base oil competes with gasoline and diesel for crude, and EIA data showed the gasoline crack spread roughly a dollar per gallon higher than at the same point in 2025. Licensing and testing costs add a separate layer, including the dexos1 Gen 3 certification Kirkland 5W-30 carries from GM and the seven additional lab tests introduced with the API SP category around 2020. The International Energy Agency cut its 2026 global oil supply forecast to 102 million barrels per day in August and projected a 1.8 million barrel per day deficit in the third quarter, more than double its prior estimate, while cumulative global inventory draws since the start of the U.S.-Iran conflict have topped 500 million barrels. U.S. diesel prices crossed $6 per gallon for the first time, sitting at $6.06 as of Monday, an 8-cent increase from Sunday and 21 cents above week-earlier levels, according to AAA.

Jim Cramer said on CNBC's Squawk on the Street that rising diesel prices amount to a 25% surtax on everything Americans buy, one Congress never voted on. Walmart CFO John David Rainey told analysts on the August 20 call that the company now expects more than $2 billion of incremental fuel-related costs this year above and beyond its original guidance assumptions, and warned of a psychological impact once fuel prices rise above $4. McDonald's CFO Ian Borden cited continued inflationary pressures on food, paper and labor, and said the company pushed its 50,000-restaurant target from 2027 to 2028 as development costs climbed. McDonald's is down 15.58% year to date, Walmart is off 6.43% in the past month, and the XLY consumer discretionary ETF is down 6.11% in the past month, while Target is up 63.63% year to date on a Q2 that included a $994 million pretax IEEPA tariff refund contributing $1.65 to EPS. Cramer conceded the consumer has a job and wages are running slightly ahead of inflation, but treats that cushion as temporary, and the University of Michigan index sat at 55.2 in July, still below the 60 line flagged as recessionary.