U.S. shopping malls showed traffic growth across the first half of 2026, with open-air malls seeing a 4.7% improvement, indoor malls 1.9% traffic growth, and outlet malls up 1%. “The category’s combination of retail, dining, entertainment, and one-stop convenience may be helping malls resonate with a broader audience in an environment where consumers remain selective about discretionary spending,” the Placer.ai report authors stated (more).

Aritzia is on track to open about a dozen new U.S. stores, including in Birmingham, Alabama; New Orleans; and St. Louis. The move comes as its first-quarter results show significant strength in both net income — up a whopping 176.7% — as well as comparable sales (up 35.1%) (more).

Ace Hardware integrated its RMN, Red Vest Media, into the Pacvue platform in order to allow advertisers to manager their Ace campaigns through Pacvue, making things easier for clients. “By partnering with Pacvue, advertisers now have the ability to engage our customer in a way that fits into their broader retail media approach, making it even more seamless to engage the Ace customer and providing more ways to activate their RedVest Media campaigns,” said Ace exec Molly Hjelm (more).

Oil prices increased in early morning trading July 13, with Brent crude up 5% and U.S. benchmark crude up 3.5% to $72.92 per barrel, as the U.S.-Iran conflict reignited with new airstrikes. Market turbulence intensified as chip and memory companies saw broad losses as well (more).

Volkwagen Group could slash its existing model lineup by 50%, with those models which remain also seeing options within the range cut by as much as 75%. Moving forward, VW Group is prioritizing “products and technologies that deliver the greatest added value for customers and the highest value contribution to the Group” (more).