The chart below shows trailing 7-day visits to 500 large Amazon fulfillment centers in the US, indexed to two days prior to the event in 2024 and 2025. Obviously, it’s the days trailing the event that are the busiest, given that’s when the orders are packed and put into delivery-station trucks. As such, it’s 2025’s large increases in Day-4, T+1, and T+2 that are really impressive. Why such a consumer response?

In light of our Tuesday article on the slower pace for retail sales in June and the tough earnings report by Conagra on Thursday, we wanted to delve into how “advantaged” grocers were doing. (Conagra reported a segment profit decline of -10% for its May-end quarter and profits for the next twelve-month period are expected to decline another 20%-ish.) As the chart below demonstrates, these specialty grocers slowed in mid-June as well.

Tuesday’s article previewing June retail sales, along with some hypotheses for why the month appears to be a deceleration from May’s pace, solicited some questions about the athleisure category. For athleisure, there was also a slowdown starting June 12th, similar to what we shared yesterday. Vuori’s deceleration is most abrupt. Lululemon and Alo Yoga have drifted back to their March pace; perhaps the bump they experienced in April and May was pull-forward with consumers securing coveted items before tariffed goods hit the shelves.

We forecasted in our review of May retail sales that June’s pace would likely be stronger than May’s; well being a forecaster, we know that we are going to be wrong some times and based on Advan’s foot traffic and transaction data, June looks to be softer AND NOT stronger. (Recall, the retail calendar puts July 5th as the end of the month vs. July 6th last year.) The first half of the period was stronger than the second half; the second half aligned with the extreme temperatures in the Great Lakes Region and the Northeast.

In light of our travels around California during the 4th of July week, the current events in California, and our recent insights on convenience stores and weight loss drugs hurting visits to limited-service restaurants (LSR), we turned the “Advan spotlight” on burger-QSR in California. As shown in the following chart, the category’s trend remains soft for June and Q2. The downshift for Burger King and McDonald’s in the 2H of June largely reflects difficult comparisons to last summer when they re-launched the $5 Value Meal.

With the battle for Seven-&-i and its US business ongoing and our recent story about weight loss drug usage hitting fast food, we took a look at recent trends for Convenience and Gas (C&G) retail. As a reminder, the industry has been facing a cyclical economic challenge as fewer motorists are enter the stores to purchase a snack, a six-pack, etc. For the industry, those inside the store visits are where the money is; for example, **Casey’s General Stores **makes $0.

General Mills’ very soft quarterly results, once again, reinforced our viewpoint that category growth for the year, as was the case last year, will be driven by private label and the retailers that excel at it. And so, in addition to scanner data, we recommend watching the foot traffic at Trader Joe’s and Aldi. As the chart shows, traffic for the conventional grocery industry (NAICS-4415) remains in the dumps. By contrast, traffic for TJ’s and Aldi remains robust and very stable.

Advantaged by a strong owned-brands portfolio and fresh offering, Kroger reported better comp-sales (+3.2%) and gross margin for its quarter. The comp increase was also higher than Advan’s +2.9% estimate* and marginally ahead of the industry’s +2.9% per the Census’ monthly report . Kroger enjoys a larger lift from pharmacy (Wegovy, Zepbound, etc) and its fast-growing delivery business (the Ocado sheds). Stripping out the benefit of pharmacy lowers Kroger’s comp-increase to +1.

As we previewed in our story about Costco, May retail sales (as measured by the Census Bureau-adjusted) slowed from April’s pace as the tariff pull-forward lapsed and leisure activity quickened (again taking share from spending on goods). Additionally, weather for most of the month and country was absolutely horrid for seasonal sales. Building materials & garden supplies fell -1.1% in May from April +2.1% increase. Advan’s measure for NAICs #44422, which is 11K nursery, garden centers, and farm supply stores around the country, declined a similar amount.

Despite tremendous noise on trade and the economy, and our ongoing frozen housing market, Restoration Hardware’s fiscal Q1 results and outlook affirmed what Advan’s traffic and transaction data suggest, that is – demand remains undiminished for the high-end brand, as well as peer Arhaus. Written orders, which measures current demand, is no longer disclosed by Restoration Hardware (RH), and so the next quarter’s guidance is a proxy; guidance for fiscal Q2 revenue growth was +15% (on an adjusted-basis) which is above for the April-end period of +12%, or reflective of stronger demand.