This Week in Retail: August retail sales and Shoptalk Fall

Shoptalk Fall is coming to Chicago this week, and Retail Brew’s Vidhi Choudhary will be in attendance to report back on the latest trends. C-suite executives from Sam’s Club, The Home Depot, and H&M, to name just a few, will be speaking on topics ranging from product curation and brand identity to AI-powered retail intelligence.

Here’s what else is going on in retail this week:

In data releases: The Commerce Department’s monthly retail sales data is dropping on Tuesday. The report will cover retail sales in August and provide a high-level look at how the economy fared through the back-to-school shopping season and how the ongoing tariff situation impacted consumer spending. In July, consumer demand showed some resilience, with sales growing 0.5% from the month before and 3.9% from a year earlier.

In conferences: NRF is headed across the pond with the debut of its Big Show Europe. The industry gathering aims to combine both the European and North American retail markets, with a speaker lineup featuring some of the biggest global players. Topics on the agenda include unified commerce, logistics and supply chains, and store design and technology.

In industry events: Best Buy is hosting a webinar on Tuesday showcasing its latest retail media innovations, products, and partnerships, and CEO Corie Barry and Best Buy Ads President Lisa Valentino will be in attendance. For background, Best Buy Ads recently launched a new offering called Social+ that allows brand and agency partners to automatically track the performance of their social media campaign with its first-party audience.

In banking: Finally, the Federal Reserve is set to announce its latest interest rate decision on Wednesday. The announcement has taken a political turn, as President Donald Trump has urged Fed Chair Jerome Powell to cut the benchmark rate, even as inflation ticked up in August.