Daily Retail Update
May 12, 2026
Hey Friends,
Good morning. Monday delivered one of the most entertaining single-day stories retail has seen in years, courtesy of GameStop and eBay. The broader market hit fresh records again, retail earnings season looms, and the Iran war continues casting a shadow on consumer sentiment. Here is what you need to know.
Latest Retail Tech News
Domestic (U.S.)
The biggest retail tech footnote of Monday is also one of the stranger ones. GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen’s $56 billion takeover bid for eBay was officially dead on arrival, with eBay’s board rejecting the proposal as “neither credible nor attractive.” But the background context matters here: this saga is also a tech story. Cohen’s pitch rested on the idea that combining GameStop’s physical retail footprint with eBay’s e-commerce marketplace could create a new kind of recommerce and resale platform. eBay has been quietly executing a real turnaround, focused on authentication, category depth, and a cleaner seller experience. The board made clear it believes that story is better told without Ryan Cohen in the room.
Meanwhile, Boot Barn’s deployment of the Aptos ONE point-of-sale platform is drawing more attention this week, as the company positions the mobile-first system across its 500-plus U.S. locations. The move streamlines IT infrastructure and puts more product intelligence in the hands of floor associates in real time. It is exactly the kind of unglamorous but consequential operational upgrade that tends to show up in margin improvement a few quarters later.
Amazon’s Just Walk Out technology passed a notable milestone that is getting fresh attention this week: more than 36.7 million items were sold through Just Walk Out-enabled stores in the 12-month span from June 2024 to May 2025. The system, which blends computer vision, sensor fusion, and RFID, is maturing fast and the adoption curve is accelerating. For anyone still treating cashierless checkout as a novelty, the numbers suggest otherwise.
Target is also piloting an overnight delivery model out of Cleveland using a dedicated sortation center and freelance drivers. If it works, it adds another card to Target’s hand as it tries to match Walmart’s store-fulfilled delivery coverage, which now reaches 95% of U.S. households in under three hours.
Global
Marc Lore’s food delivery startup Wonder is reportedly preparing for a 2026 IPO, drawing renewed interest from investors watching the intersection of hospitality, tech, and retail. Wonder operates a model that merges restaurant delivery with ghost kitchen capabilities, and its potential public offering would be one of the more unusual retail-adjacent listings of the year.
