Summerween came even earlier this year at Michaels, with searches for the term increasing 2,889% from June 2024.

The arts and crafts chain met this demand head on with the earliest ever launch of its Halloween decor, releasing five Halloween-themed collections in June.

“We brought in Halloween earlier than ever,” Melissa Mills, SVP and general merchandise manager at Michaels, told Retail Brew. “It’s really just been a response to the customers and what they’re expecting from us.”

The rise of Summerween is years in the making. As a National Retail Federation survey found in 2024, nearly half of consumers started shopping for Halloween before October, which is up 37% from five years before.

Internal data from Walmart, meanwhile, found that 66% of shoppers had purchased Halloween goodies in August and September of last year. And other outlets such as West Elm and HomeGoods also released spooky collections early in the summer this year.

This is the backdrop for Michaels’s increasingly trend-driven approach to Halloween, which as Mills explained, aims to bring novelty and quality to an increasingly crowded—and prolonged—fall holiday shopping season.

Keep reading here.—AV

One of the US’ fastest-growing retailers is a German grocery chain that displays items in cardboard boxes and makes you deposit a quarter to get a shopping cart.

An Aldi store could be coming to your neighborhood sometime soon, as the discount grocer pushes ahead with its biggest-ever expansion in the United States, the WSJ reported. Aldi plans to open more than 225 US stores this year, bringing its total to around 2,600 locations by the end of 2025. That would make it the third-largest supermarket chain in the US by number of stores, after Walmart and Kroger.

Aldi has plenty of justification to keep expanding—its stores are packed at a time when grocery visits overall are stagnating. Customer trips to Aldi locations were up more than 7% in the first half of the year, compared to 1.8% growth for the broader industry, according to Placer.AI.

Keep reading here on Morning Brew.—NF

On Wednesdays, we wear pink spotlight Retail Brew’s readers. Want to be featured in an upcoming edition? Click here to introduce yourself.

Rosa Li is founder and CEO of functional beverage brand Wildwonder.

How would you describe your job to someone who doesn’t work in retail? I’m basically a storyteller, flavor curator, and firefighter all in one. I build a brand that turns gut health into something joyful and craveable, while juggling everything from product development to sales meetings to building our financial projections and taste tests in grocery store aisles.

One thing we can’t guess about your job from your LinkedIn profile? Being a founder is as much about people as it is about product. One of the most meaningful (and challenging) parts of my job is building and inspiring a team that believes in the mission just as deeply as I do. I’ve had to learn how to hire not just talent, but passion, and I’m so proud that we’ve created more than just a company, we’ve created a tribe. And yes, I still jump in to respond to DMs or pack mailers when needed because no one is above rolling up their sleeves when it’s something you love.

What’s your favorite project you’ve worked on? Our first very out-of-home campaign for Whole Foods Market. Whole Foods was the first flagship retail partner I worked with, and we focused on expanding with Whole Foods region by region to make sure we’re succeeding in every region. Once we felt ready for a national expansion, we worked on a fun out-of-home campaign and drove trucks wrapped in Wildwonder branding around New York City, and around Whole Foods stores. The buzz was incredible.

Keep reading here.—EC

Discover how resale evolved from a quirky eBay experiment in the ’90s to a booming, brand-backed industry. From ThredUp to The RealReal, see how technology, sustainability, and shifting consumer habits turned recommerce into a retail mainstay.