2026 Trends

The Footprint Shrinks: Chain Closures Redraw the Map American pharmacy retail enters 2026 looking noticeably thinner on the ground than it did even two years ago. CVS is partway through a multi-year plan to shutter roughly 900 stores announced back in 2021, and Walgreens followed in 2024 with its own commitment to close around 1,200 locations as part of a turnaround under CEO Tim Wentworth. Rite Aid, which emerged from Chapter 11 in 2024 only to file again in 2025, has sold, closed, or transferred prescription files from hundreds of stores, with CVS and Walgreens picking up many of those scripts. The net effect is fewer neighborhood options, and the consequences are sharpest in rural counties and lower-income urban ZIP codes where a single closure can push the nearest pharmacy counter miles away. ...

Fashion in 2026 no longer runs on a single clock. The old system — designers dictate, magazines translate, shoppers obey — has been quietly dismantled over the last five years, replaced by a fragmented, algorithm-driven, resale-hungry ecosystem that behaves less like an industry and more like a network. If your closet feels out of sync with what you’re seeing online, that’s not your imagination. The center has collapsed. Understanding how it collapsed, and what’s replacing it, is now the difference between shopping smart and shopping yourself into a storage unit. ...