Retail & Consumer Goods

Austin – October 28, 2026 -- About 84% of outdoor recreation consumers say product price increases would affect their future purchase decisions, up from roughly 74% in 2023, according to Rollick's 2026 Future of Buying Study. The survey drew on 17,764 recent shoppers across 31 RV, marine and powersports brands.

Buying cycles lengthen across RV, marine and powersports

In RV, 45% of shoppers now take four months or longer to complete a purchase, a 12-percentage-point increase since 2023. In marine, 40% take four months or more. In powersports, 51% spend more than one month shopping before buying.

Rollick concludes that brands and dealers need long-term lead nurture strategies to stay engaged through the extended decision period.

PORTLAND, Maine – October 28, 2026 -- mainelove's Perfectly Still Water has won Double Gold in the Non-Carbonated Water category at the inaugural 2026 Water Choice Awards, presented by The Daily Pour, as the Maine-sourced brand expands into Florida and adds hotel placements.

Blind tasting of 49 entries produces five Double Gold winners in still water

The competition evaluated 49 entries across seven categories. Judges tasted the waters blind from coded glasses without visible branding. mainelove was one of five Double Gold recipients in the Non-Carbonated Water category, and the brand says it is among the few U.S. water brands to earn the distinction.

Judges described the water as smooth and crisp, with a subtle sweetness and no bitter notes. One called the taste "so smooth," while others cited a refreshing, cooling quality and a creamy texture.

Global – October 28, 2026 -- The global intelligent vending machine market is projected to grow from $11 billion in 2025 to more than $53 billion by 2034, a compound annual growth rate of 18% from 2026 to 2034, according to Fortune Business Insights. Rising use of cashless payments and wider adoption of IoT and connected technologies drive the expansion.

Smart modules replace multi-vendor hardware integration in vending machine design

Smart modules combine high-performance computing with wireless connectivity in a single unit. Traditional modules require extensive development of external hardware and software, and manufacturers must work with multiple vendors to integrate different technologies. Telit Cinterion, which sells smart modules, says the embedded design reduces physical footprint, shortens development cycles and cuts time to market.

United States – – October 27, 2026 -- Brilliant Earth has moved more than 100 showroom operations users off a legacy BI platform and onto Posit dashboards running natively inside Snowflake, cutting software license costs while widening self-serve access to governed data.

The luxury jewelry retailer already reprices its diamond inventory daily through an automated model running in Snowflake. That capability prompted the company to adopt the platform. Weekly data science reports captured only moments in time, so Brilliant Earth set out to give decision-makers direct access to the same data and models.

Posit Team runs as a Snowflake Native App on Snowpark Container Services

Brilliant Earth installed Posit Team inside Snowflake instead of maintaining a separate server with its own security protocols. Snowflake roles, user permissions and table access now govern Posit as well.

United States – October 23, 2026 -- Procter & Gamble's Febreze Unstopables Touch Fabric Spray is the first P&G product to incorporate materials based on the company's space-based research, sponsored by the International Space Station (ISS) National Laboratory. P&G household products are used every day by more than 4 billion people worldwide, more than half the Earth's population.

Touch-activated scent release is the first commercial output of P&G's ISS work

The latest Febreze formulation features touch-activated scent release technology. It contains microscopic capsules of perfume suspended in a liquid that, according to P&G researcher Matt Lynch, looks and feels like water. The capsules release a small burst of fragrance when a hand is rubbed on a sprayed surface or someone walks over it, countering unpleasant odors.

Stockholm – October 23, 2026 -- Nordic design and lifestyle brand ARKET will open its fifth store in Sweden in late 2026, adding a third location in its home city of Stockholm at Biblioteksgatan 11.

New Biblioteksgatan store joins four existing Swedish locations

The Biblioteksgatan outlet will sit alongside ARKET's current Stockholm stores on Drottninggatan and Götgatan. The brand also operates stores in Malmö and Gothenburg, so the opening brings its Swedish network to five.

Assortment centres on ready-to-wear, accessories and interior objects

The new store will carry a curated selection of ready-to-wear and accessories for women and men, plus interior objects. ARKET's broader format covers collections for women, men, children and the home, as well as an in-store seasonal vegetarian café. The source does not say whether the Biblioteksgatan store will include the café or children's ranges.

Vienna, VA – October 23, 2026 -- Target took three of the top honors at the 2026 RH-ISAC awards: Team of the Year, Cybersecurity Practitioner of the Year for senior threat intel analyst Chris De La Rosa, and a first-place finish in the Sharing & Collaboration Challenge team rankings. The Retail & Hospitality Information Sharing and Analysis Center announced the winners at its Member Celebration Dinner and Awards Ceremony on April 15 in Austin, Texas.

Crocs CISO Lena Taylor wins Peer Choice Award for CISO of the Year

Lena Taylor, CISO at Crocs, received the 2026 Peer Choice Award for CISO of the Year. The award goes to a thought leader whose experience adds strategic value to the wider community.

Vienna, VA – October 23, 2026 -- The Retail & Hospitality Information Sharing and Analysis Center (RH-ISAC) has scheduled 14 confirmed in-person cybersecurity workshops across North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific for 2026, with a 15th planned for London in November.

Series opens in Singapore on 3 June and closes in Sydney on 11 November

The one-day events start in Singapore on 3 June, followed by Herndon, Virginia, on 11 June and Herzogenaurach, Germany, on 7 July. Stops in Natick, Massachusetts (29 July), Brampton, Canada (30 July), Bangalore, India (5 August), Louisville, Kentucky (13 August) and Richfield, Minnesota (18 August) complete the summer calendar.

The autumn run begins in Parsippany, N.J., on 16 September, then moves to Paris (25 September), Las Vegas (1 October), Vancouver (14 October), Atlanta (3 November) and Sydney (11 November). RH-ISAC has not yet released details for the London date.

Vienna, VA – October 23, 2026 -- The Retail & Hospitality Information Sharing and Analysis Center (RH-ISAC) has announced the 2026 schedule for its Regional Workshop series, a global program hosted in key markets across North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific. The workshops bring cybersecurity practitioners together for in-person collaboration, threat intelligence sharing and professional development.

RH-ISAC and IANS publish 2026 CISO Benchmark Report on 1 April

The workshop announcement follows a run of releases from the group. On 1 April 2026, RH-ISAC and IANS released the 2026 CISO Benchmark Report. It examines how cybersecurity leaders in retail and hospitality are handling economic pressure, evolving threats and the rapid rise of artificial intelligence.

Global – October 22, 2026 -- The NRF 4-5-4 Calendar adds a 53rd week to the retail reporting year roughly every five to six years, most recently in 2023, to keep sales comparisons aligned between years.

Calendar splits the year into 4-5-4 week months to match weekends and holidays

The voluntary industry guide divides the year into months of 4, 5 and 4 weeks. Comparable months contain the same number of Saturdays and Sundays, so like days are compared with like days in sales reporting. The layout also lines up holidays.

The format dates to an informal inter-industry discussion in the 1930s. Retailers had reported on a straight calendar, but weekends made up a growing share of sales while the number of weekends per month varied from year to year. Many stores adopted the 4-5-4 Calendar in the 1940s.