News Briefs

An AI-powered, retail inventory intelligence platform has raised $170 million in Series B funding, bringing the company’s valuation to $1 billion.

The Radar platform combines proprietary hardware, software, and analytics to deliver 99% item-level inventory accuracy for retailers, the company said. Founded in 2013, Radar’s investors include Jay  Schottenstein, executive chairman and CEO of American Eagle Outfitters.

Currently, the platform, which uses ceiling-mounted sensors to track in-store retail inventory in real time, is deployed across more than 1,400 stores, including at American Eagle Outfitters and Old Navy locations.

 “As the first retailer to implement Radar technology fleet-wide, American Eagle has unlocked greater inventory visibility, empowered our associates and sharpened our insights,” said Schottenstein. “With inventory digitized in real-time, we have enabled our creative, operations and technology teams to place their focus on creating seamless, customer-first experiences that define the American Eagle brand.”

Radar’s  platform combines proprietary overhead sensors, software, and an analytics layer into a single end-to-end system. Sensors mounted on store ceilings read every tagged item continuously, tracking precise location and movement across the sales floor,  stockroom and fitting rooms. 

The data flows directly into Radar’s software layer, which converts raw location signals into operational action, inclding  automated replenishment alerts, omnichannel fulfillment routing, loss prevention triggers and merchandising intelligence. 

“In 2026, operating without real-time intelligence in physical retail means choosing to leave billions of dollars on the table," said Spencer Hewett, Radar founder and CEO. "Radar is changing that. Today, we’re empowering retailers to run stores with the same precision as e-commerce. This round signals market conviction in the scale of the opportunity and accelerates our ability to extend that advantage across retail and beyond.”

A banner owned by Canada's Loblaw Companies will soon make its California debut.

T&T Supermarket, the largest Asian grocery chain in Canada, will open its first California location, at Westgate Center in San Jose, on June 18. The opening marks the company’s ongoing expansion in the U.S. market, where it has opened locations in Bellevue and Lynwood, Wash. 

T&T has additional California stores in the works, including in San Francisco and Millbrae. It also plans to enter Southern California, with locations in Chino Hills and Irvine.

[READ MORE: Canadian grocer T&T Supermarkets delivers via Uber Eats]

The 55,000-sq.-ft. San Jose store will feature thousands of products spanning Chinese, Taiwanese, Japanese, Korean, Southeast Asian and other Asian cuisines. It will also offer prepared foods, in-store bakery items, made-to-order street food, live seafood, viral snacks, beauty products and more.

“San Jose is a long-anticipated store,” said Tina Lee, CEO of T&T Supermarkets. “We’re bringing more than just exciting, high-quality foods. We’re exporting a new way of life from Canada: one that’s deeply food-centric, celebratory, rich in tradition, and fresh-obsessed. We aim to help Asian families stay connected to the food and traditions they grew up with. In pursuit of this cause, T&T has also become a destination for Asian food discovery for everyone.”

Founded in Vancouver in 1993, T&T Supermarkets operates 39 stores across Canada and the United States. It is headquartered in Richmond, British Colombia.

TikTok’s user base — and its influence on shopping, entertainment, and media habits — now extends far beyond younger generations.

TikTok is often seen as a platform dominated by younger generations, but baby boomers have established a meaningful presence on the app too, according to new data from YouGov. Nearly one-in-five TikTok users in the U.S. are baby boomers, despite them often being overlooked in conversations about the platform.

The findings also reveal that boomers on TikTok are also highly engaged consumers, with 78% researching products online and 48% using social media to research brands and products.

“Compared to younger TikTok users, boomers are more likely to make direct purchases after seeing products online or in-store, suggesting a more straightforward path to purchase,” YouGov said. 

Other findings from YouGov are below.

•Millennials make up the largest share of TikTok users (30%), followed by 27% for Gen X and 24% for Gen Z, with baby boomers representing 19% of the platform’s audience.

•More than half (52%) of baby boomers on TikTok spend over an hour per day on social media, including 19% who spend between two and five hours daily

•Staying connected with friends and family (77%) and following news and current events (64%) are the top reasons boomers use social media,

Many consumers have sustainability concerns regarding retailers, manufacturers and artificial intelligence.

More than four in 10 (nearly 46%) of U.S. consumers say that learning a retailer’s supply chain is not environmentally sustainable would affect whether they shop with that brand. This impact is stronger among younger shoppers, with 61% of Gen Z and 57% of millennial consumers surveyed by S.E. Advisory Services (the global consulting service of Schneider Electric) saying supply chain sustainability influences their decisions on what retailers to shop.

[READ MORE: How supply chain transparency can boost sales]

When asked which sectors contribute most to carbon emissions, respondents most frequently cited gas-powered vehicles (28%) and manufacturing (27%). The survey also revealed widespread consumer concerns about the sustainability of AI, with close to half (48%) of all respondents saying the energy used to support AI affects their willingness to adopt AI-powered tools.

Concern about AI sustainability was highest among Gen Z (62%) and millennial (59%) respondents. The survey also shows that AI is linked to wider concerns about energy use at home. Four in 10 (41%) respondents worry that AI could increase household energy bills, and 19% say they are extremely concerned or already seeing changes.

And close to six in 10 (58%) agree that businesses have a general responsibility to manage their supply chains, technology use, and resources in a sustainable way.

S.E. Advisory Services conducted a November 2025 omnibus survey of 1,000 U.S. adults.

The retail industry is seeing an increase in the number of cyberincidents and the share involving some sort of espionage.

Verizon recorded 997 digital security incidents in the retail industry during 2025, including 806 with confirmed data disclosure. The annual 2026 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report also reveals that the top patterns for retail cyberincidents were system intrusion, basic web application attacks and social engineering, representing a combined 95% of all breaches. 

These were also the three top patterns recorded by Verizon in 2024, but social engineering was second-most-common that year. In addition, during 2024 Verizon recorded 837 digital security incidents in the retail industry during 2024, including 419 with confirmed data disclosure.

[READ MORE: Verizon: Retail cyberattacks on the rise]

Almost all recorded threat actors (99%) were external, with 1% internal. Eighty-five percent of actors had a financial motive, with 19% also conducting some sort of espionage. 

There was a substantial year-over-year increase in the number of threat actors conducting espionage from only 9% in 2024 and 1% in 2023, as well as a decrease from 100% of threat actors having a financial motive in 2024.

The top three types of data (more than one type can be exposed in a single incident) compromised in retail breaches reported by Verizon were internal (84%), credentials (26%), secrets (20%) and other (9%).

The top three retail cyberattack patterns as tracked by Verizon were exploitation of vulnerabilities (42%), credential abuse (14%) and phishing (9%)

Verizon examined more than 31,000 actual real-world security incidents across industries, of which more than 22,000 were confirmed data breaches involving organizations in 145 countries.

A convenience store giant is disclosing a third-party data breach that occurred in April 2026.

7-Eleven has released a notification letter from chief information security officer Jim Kastle dated May 1, 2026 to franchisees who had personal information exposed in a security breach that occurred Wednesday, April 8, 2026 when an unauthorized third party gained access to some of its systems that store franchisee documents.

Through an investigation 7-Eleven said it initiated with “a leading forensics firm” as soon as it discovered the incident, the retailer determined that personal data exposed in the incident included information provided during franchise applications, such as name, address and other redacted data elements.

7-Eleven has arranged for affected franchisees to enroll in identity theft protection services and CyberScan monitoring through IDX at no cost for up to 24 months, with an enrollment deadline of Aug. 1, 2026.

[READ MORE: Verizon: Retail cyberattacks on the rise]

In comments emailed to Chain Store Age, Ensar Seker, chief information security officer at cyberintelligence firm SOCRadar, said a well-known hacker group that calls itself ShinyHunters has claimed responsibility for the breach.

“ShinyHunters continues to demonstrate that attackers increasingly prioritize business ecosystems over individual endpoints,” Seker said in the commentary. “In many cases, compromising a document repository or administrative backend can provide more long-term value than deploying disruptive ransomware. These actors are targeting trust relationships, operational data, and partner infrastructures because they understand the downstream impact can be much larger.”

Paul Bischoff, consumer privacy advocate at tech research firm Comparitech, said in emailed commentary to Chain Store Age that “normal” 7-Eleven customers have little to worry about, but employees and loyalty program members may have had personal data exposed.

“Breach victims should be on the lookout for targeted phishing emails from scammers posing as 7-Eleven or a related company," advised Bischoff.