Given our recent analysis on how extended store hours were driving additional visits to **Sam’s **and Costco, we were interested in what Costco had to say about it on yesterday’s earnings call. CEO Ron Vachris said, “We estimate these incremental hours have added about 1% to weekly U.S. sales since implementation. This has been very well received by our members.” CFO Gary Millerchip shared, “Excluding the membership fee increase and FX, membership income grew 7% year-over-year.

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Yesterday we took time to visit our nearby Apple store to check on the new iPhone Air (yes, it’s a very nice device) and was surprised by the high bustle of activity at the store despite it being 2:00 on a Wednesday afternoon. We were also struck by the number of folks saying to the salesperson, “We’re here to get new phones.” There were also numerous visitors trying on Apple Watches.

Advan has launched its SpendView™ geographic visualization product. This shows historical brand and location level, as well as consumer spending from a zip code / DMA / regional level (within where the spender lives). This is based on our panel of over 120M debit and credit cards. We then aggregate that spending by retailer brand and on- vs. off-line in terms of the utilized channel of a given brand. The charts below contrast Walmart and Amazon, August 2025 vs.

In our last story about the blowout opening of the Wizard of Oz at Sphere in Las Vegas, we promised to come back to the story with next week’s results and Wow! did it perform strongly. Based upon observed visits and a $200 average ticket cost, we estimate that attendance for the Thursday – Sunday period (10 showings) increased by 60% to 72K tickets and $15M in box office. In movies, the WoW decay in box office is typically 50%.

Contrary to our expectation, observed activity at Tesla’s showrooms has not dramatically slowed on a YoY basis as the calendar pushes closer to the expiration of the EV tax credit, something that Tesla is highlighting at its showrooms and website (second panel below). Moreover, it’s a deadline that every active EV buying prospect has to be aware of. Activity has moved lower on an absolute basis as is shown in the blue shade below.

Darden’s fiscal Q1 results were solid, observed traffic (Advan) increased +3.7% at Olive Garden and reported comp-traffic was +3.6% (with catering). Focusing on just Olive Garden, delivery (both the meals and the fees) added around +140bps to comp-sales, and price / mix another +90bps, to make up the +5.9% reported comp-sales increase. Excluding delivery, average check was lifted by pricing, but offset by mix to value offers / portions and less alcohol.

As expected, observed foot traffic and retail sales slowed slightly from July’s strong back-to-school showing; however, contrary to our expectation that it would slow further following back-to-school, the first half of September has demonstrated improved foot traffic momentum, especially at Walmart. We last wrote about Walmart two weeks ago after CEO Doug McMillon’s very favorable commentary at the Goldman Sachs’ investor conference. Walmart’s sustained strong foot traffic trend demonstrates that its compelling value messaging and consumers’ even greater sensitivity to inflation are leading to more foot traffic for the brand.

As of late, we’ve been writing about the improving demand for housing-related retail , with the trend up after being in the dumps since 2022. We also see evidence of that improvement in the building confidence of the management teams of the related principal retailers in to the form of increased capital outlays– **Lowe’s **acquisitions of sheet rock distributor Foundation Building Materials and Artisan Design Group, and Home Depot’s $24B acquisitions of SRS and GMS.

Following our note on **7-Eleven **and its new store prototype and potential to improve its inside-the-store contribution to sales, in addition to our story about drive-through coffee and QSR, here we touch on the strong Q2 results from **Casey’s General Store **and the improving trend for Circle K (Alimentation Couche-Tard). Casey’s CEO Darren Rebelez, “We saw positive traffic growth as guests responded well to our innovation and promotional activity in the prepared food and dispensed beverage category.