• Target just remodeled its SoHo store with a larger emphasis on style and design.
• The store showcases a curated sample from Target's full merchandise assortment.
• Target invited Business Insider for an exclusive first look ahead of the location's reopening.

Target is doubling down on its SoHo concept store.

Less than a year after remodeling the store's main floor, the bullseye retailer went back in to reimagine the rest of the footprint that anchors Target in one of the world's top shopping districts.

"It was probably more of a glorified convenience store," Target's chief brand officer Michelle Mesenberg told Business Insider during an exclusive walkthrough ahead of Thursday's reopening.

Located at the corner of Broadway and East Houston Street, the SoHo store shares the block with trendy shops like Prada, Arc'teryx, and Allsaints. While last year's renovation bumped up the store's aesthetics, Mesenberg said it was still more of a spot for people to grab essentials on their way to somewhere else.

"Nearly 70,000 people cross this corner every single day," she said. "We wanted to make sure that we were putting our best foot forward when it came to our brand."

Last year's remodel featured an extended entrance experience that calls to mind a deconstructed Target logo.

It's now stocked with apparel-forward displays that also feature select merchandise from other categories.

"It's focused on apparel, but you'll see us mix in the best of beauty, the best of home, and so we're really completing the picture for a guest," Target's director of curation, Matthew Arrington, told Business Insider.

Further back on the main floor, a new section features a more immersive presentation of seasonal merchandise.

"What this space does is it puts a point of view on our edit for the season, and that allows people to come in and see our product through a different lens," Mesenberg said.

Last year's remodel of the SoHo store's beauty section also set the tone for this year's broader launch of Target's Beauty Studio, which has replaced the retailer's partnership with Ulta.

"We've been able to also bring in other beauty founders and creators and celebrity makeup artists to the space, and so it gives them a place to continue to tell that beauty story across Target," Arrington said.

Mesenberg said Target sees its stores serving in part as studios for content creators, and no store does it quite like the SoHo store.

"Brands want to be in this location — this is prime real estate," she said.

The newly remodeled lower level features a futuristic discovery section that features trending items across several categories like toys, sports fandom, and gadgets.

"We take a high-curation lens here, based upon what's happening in culture at any given point in time." Mesenberg said.

Imagine distilling an entire aisle from a typical suburban Target store and distilling it into one shelf of the trendiest items — that's the SoHo store's "Explorer's Lab."

The store has to navigate a balancing act to meet the expectations of the various kinds of customers it serves.

From college students at NYU who need dorm snacks, to international tourists who need a new suitcase, to local New Yorkers simply trying to grab a roll of paper towels, the SoHo store still carries the essentials and more.

Almost everything in the SoHo store is also available at Target stores across the US, but the intense focus on curation and fresh features is meant to elevate items that shoppers might not realize are right at their fingertips.

For Arrington, that means making very tough choices about which colors, brands, or pack sizes get display space. Shoppers can still get Target's full selection online or at another store.

Even as Target leans harder into style and design, the SoHo store still aims to deliver on the basics shoppers expect when they walk in the door.

"People still want their Tide pens. Tide pens are one of the top sellers in the store. Bananas are one of the top sellers in the store. We have a very big, bold, proud assortment of both," Mesenberg said.

It's an approach that yields interesting outcomes on the shelves. Established national brands shoppers expect are next to emerging ones they might have heard about on TikTok.

"When we have a founder-led or celebrity-led or creator-led brand that we want to celebrate, this becomes a destination for them," Arrington said.

Mesenberg said that while brand awareness for Target is a particular focus of the SoHo store, that's not at the expense of going after strong sales.

The SoHo store is and will remain a "one of one" format for Target, Mesenberg said, but it is playing a growing role in the company's overall strategy.

"We're pulling elements of what we're learning here. It may not translate exactly one for one, but the influence is coming into the chain," she said.

Correction: October 22, 2026 — An earlier version of this story misspelled Michelle Mesenberg's last name.

• Walmart is rolling out two new tools to help third-party AI agents shop on behalf of customers.
• The company says the tools give people more control of their bots, and help bots be more accurate.
• Walmart's move contrasts with Amazon's approach, after it blocked Meta's agent Muse from its site.

Walmart wants your bot to shop.

The retail giant said Wednesday that it has two new tools to help third-party AI agents shop on customers' behalf: agent profiles and an agent gateway.

The agent profiles link all transactions to the bot that performed them, and allow Walmart customers to manage authorizations and spending limits as they would for an additional user on their credit card account, the company said.

With agent gateways, bots no longer have to navigate a website that is designed for humans. Instead, Walmart is granting access through a model text protocol that it says will help agents work more quickly and accurately.

Walmart's move contrasts with Amazon's approach, which recently blocked Meta's agent Muse from its site, saying agents violate Amazon's conditions of use. Amazon has also pushed back on other third-party agents, including a lawsuit against Perplexity and restrictions on agents from Google and OpenAI.

"As customers begin using agents to help them shop, we're building connections, permissions and options that complement those tools and support how customers want to use them," the company said in a statement.

The company also said the gateway protects the information that Walmart has about its customers, and only provides what is necessary for completing a given transaction. In particular, the gateway can share a relevant pattern or preference — such as a customer's favorite laundry detergent brand — without sharing their entire purchase history with the agent.

The company also laid out a set of terms and conditions regarding how AI agents are expected to operate when shopping.

Under the terms, the company said it will honor its usual returns policy and that agents will always see the same pricing that a human would see on Walmart.com.

• AT&T CEO is brushing off concerns that satellite-based internet could threaten his business.
• "I think LEO constellations are fantastic for delivering bandwidth to rural areas," he said.
• When it comes to where lots of people live, he said fiber-connected performance can't be beat.

Elon Musk wants SpaceX to become a major US mobile carrier. AT&T CEO John Stankey says: not so fast.

AT&T has an advantage from years of investment in dense urban and suburban areas, he said on AT&T's third-quarter earnings call, a day after Musk and SpaceX chief operating officer Gwynne Shotwell reported more than 22 million monthly Starlink Mobile users.

"Our competitors cannot and will not match our operating proficiency, network performance, or exceptional converged value proposition," Stankey said.

Stankey sees a use case for satellite-based internet to soften the edges of fiber-connected and 5G networks, especially in places where it's too expensive to build out the physical infrastructure, he said.

"I think LEO constellations are fantastic for delivering bandwidth to rural areas," he said, using the acronym for low-Earth orbit satellite arrays.

Shotwell said Tuesday that Starlink recently got FCC approval to launch 15,000 V2 satellites. She also noted a recent agreement to acquire a portfolio of low-band transmission spectrum, or wireless frequency licenses, which better penetrate buildings to reach indoor devices.

Stankey was unimpressed.

"How you perform indoors, of course, is extremely important, and we shouldn't think about those as being nominal loads," he said. "They're significant loads, even with robust Wi-Fi networks that are out there."

This is especially critical in crowded environments like stadiums and hospitals, where he said AT&T has been focused on beefing up signal support.

"I wouldn't over-rotate on what I would call one carrier of low band spectrum," he said, referring to Starlink.

• Target has launched a beta version of its Ask Target AI chatbot to help with the holidays.
• Major retail competitors like Amazon, Walmart, and Lowe's have offered the features for months now.
• Conversational apps can help shoppers discover new products and build larger baskets.

Target shoppers have a new elf to help with their holiday gift lists.

The Bullseye retailer just launched a beta version of its AI-powered chatbot, called Ask Target, in time for the seasonal rush. The move brings Target into closer step with rivals like Amazon, Walmart, and Lowe's, each of which has offered the feature for months now.

"We have seen a lot of traction as we start to think about that conversational AI, so the team was excited to push it through to capitalize on our biggest season of the year," chief merchandising officer Cara Sylvester told Business Insider during a holiday preview event in New York.

Sylvester also said that the app can answer Target-related questions, not only holiday-specific ones. An internal rollout of the tool had store employees brushing up on new merchandise, particularly in the new Beauty Studio department.

The AI assistant comes two months after Target hired former Lowe's AI head Chandhu Nair as its first chief AI officer. At Lowe's, Nair oversaw the home improvement retailer's Mylow chatbot, which the company has credited with "dramatic improvements" in customer service.

Whether it's renovation advice or recipe ideas, retailers say chatbots trained on proprietary in-house data are more effective at responding to customer queries than an outside bot like OpenAI's ChatGPT or Google's Gemini. The in-house bots can also act as a digital counterpart for personal AI agents like Meta's Muse.

Walmart has said that its Sparky agent has helped the retailer better understand its customers, as shoppers are having more conversational interactions rather than simple keyword searches. Sparky users discover more items and build shopping baskets that are 40% larger than those of non-users, the company has said.

Sylvester said it's too early to say what the basket-size impacts of the new Ask Target agent are.

• Walmart is offering a new membership bundle that combines Walmart Plus and Sam's Club Plus.
• The new combo includes both memberships for less than the price of a Costco Executive membership.
• A key feature of each membership is their increasingly fast delivery services.

Walmart rolled out a perk for its Plus membership programs, taking a shot at rivals Amazon and Costco.

The retail giant said Tuesday that it is offering a membership bundle that includes Walmart Plus and Sam's Club Plus for $120 per year.

That means existing Sam's Club Plus members now effectively get Walmart Plus included, and Walmart Plus members can add the premium-level club membership for an additional $22.

CEO John Furner took a not-so-subtle jab at Amazon and Costco in a statement announcing the news.

"Consider what people may be paying today: $139 for a retail membership with delivery. $130 for a warehouse club," he said, referring to their respective fees.

Walmart has been taking sharp aim at both retail competitors, with membership perks that overlap in several areas, like streaming entertainment, pharmacy services, and deals from partner businesses.

The biggest perk for Plus members — whether at Walmart or Sam's Club — is an increasingly fast delivery operation that fulfills orders from stores and clubs in as little as 30 minutes. Some orders have arrived in fewer than 10 minutes.

"The bundled offering screens as another signal of WMT pushing more value into its overall ecosystem, and highlighting its rapid delivery capabilities," Mizuho analyst David Bellinger said in a note.

Walmart doesn't disclose membership counts or fee revenue, but Mizuho estimates the chains have about 25 million Walmart Plus members and 30 million Sam's Club members. The bank also estimates an overlap of about 10% between Walmart and Sam's Club members.

Globally, Costco reported more than 150 million membership cardholders, and Amazon is estimated to have more than 220 million Prime members.

• Amazon is hiring more seasonal workers than ever this year.
• The company will also extend healthcare benefits for hourly workers on day one, starting on Jan. 1.
• Holiday hiring is shifting from traditional store jobs toward more e-commerce distribution roles.

Amazon plans to boost its seasonal workforce by 20%, assembling its largest temporary workforce ever.

The e-commerce giant aims to hire 300,000 employees during the holiday rush for its fulfillment and transportation network across the US. The target is up from 250,000 for each of the prior three years. It also plans to offer healthcare coverage on day one of employment for full-time, part-time, and seasonal hourly workers with at least 30 hours a week scheduled, starting January 1.

Seasonal workers who join before January 1 will begin receiving healthcare on that date, the company said. Workers who join after will have access from their first date of hire. The company hires seasonal workers year-round.

Amazon health plans start at $5 a week and include $5 copays. The company previously said part-time and seasonal employees qualified for medical insurance after 90 days, depending on the number of hours worked.

The company says seasonal employees can earn an average wage of more than $20 per hour, while full- and part-time regular employees see an average of nearly $24 per hour. Last month, Amazon increased its minimum pay for core operations workers to $20 an hour and gave all US workers new grocery discounts.

Seasonal hiring has been somewhat of a mixed bag this year, with some traditional retailers like Walmart and Target opting to tap into their existing workforces. Others, like Spirit Halloween, Michael's, and Dick's Sporting Goods have announced plans to collectively hire approximately 73,000 people this year.

A report last week from Indeed found that the seasonal hiring window is starting earlier in the year and shifting from conventional in-store retail toward more e-commerce fulfillment roles.

Amazon says its seasonal roles often fill within minutes of being posted, and that some seasonal workers ultimately find a longer-term position with the company.

• Business Insider has been tracking 45 items at Costco to see how energy costs affect retail prices.
• President Trump's conflict with Iran has disrupted oil and transportation markets around the world.
• Most products have had minimal price changes, but some like motor oil and whey protein are way up.

Like the proverbial pot that's been watched but won't boil, the Costco prices I've tracked this year have remained remarkably calm amid an economy full of heat.

A basket of 45 items I'm following rose 3% since July, but that change is largely attributable to the recent surge in motor oil prices.

Overall, the numbers I see on my local warehouse shelves tell a very different story than what I would expect after following the tumultuous news from around the world. Costco prides itself on keeping shelf prices in its warehouses close to wholesale prices for its members, which makes it a useful early read on supply-cost pressures.

It's hardly a national price index, but it does reveal how global economic forces are showing up in an ordinary US community like Madison, Wisconsin.

My data show that grocery and merchandise prices remain steady, with small hikes and discounts mostly balancing out in the total basket. Meanwhile, some items like motor oil, protein powder, and aluminum foil are starting to show signs of pressure from their respective commodity markets. Costco did not respond to a request to comment for this story.

On a conference call last month, CEO Ron Vachris said the company works with vendors to deal with commodity price increases and keep prices in check. "It's a continual focus for all of our buyers in looking at how to reduce pricing," he said.

But first, it's worth taking a step back.

I've been keeping a close eye on prices over the past year and a half out of concern for the impact that President Donald Trump's trade war would have on everyday items that US households buy.

In January, I developed a list of commonly purchased items that highlight the value of shopping from a wholesale club. After the US and Israel launched their attack on Iran in February, I decided to keep going back to see how conflict in the Middle East would affect grocery bills in the Midwest.

So far, the effects have been surprisingly muted. The full basket rose 2.3% from $864.60 in January to $884.60 on October 13.

The basket rose slightly from January to April, largely because a two-pound bag of Starbucks coffee beans increased by $3.20. In May, the four-pound packs of organic ground beef were replaced with similar-sized packs of conventional beef for about the same price: $24.99. The move helped Costco manage the widely reported rise in beef prices, which has even had hamburger purveyors touting their chicken offerings to customers.

By June, the basket was about $10 below its April peak, as modest reductions across much of the list offset a $10 jump in whey protein, where shortages have continued to squeeze supply.

Bacon and berries got cheaper in July, while Kirkland motor oil rose by $4. Charmin cut 60 square feet of toilet paper from its 30-roll pack but also lowered the sticker price by $3, leaving shoppers with a slightly better unit value.

More recently, refining bottlenecks and attacks on oil infrastructure have sent diesel prices soaring, which is ramping up transportation costs.

In the warehouse, the most visible example of the oil supply problem is the Kirkland Signature motor oil, which shot up to $57.99 — a 60% increase over the price in June.

Meanwhile, blueberries more than doubled in price, from $3.99 in July to $8.99 in October. All fresh berry prices fluctuated by a few dollars throughout the year, so it isn't clear if that change is driven by seasonal availability, transportation costs, or a combination of factors.

Other commodities are facing supply and tariff pressure too: the price of aluminum foil increased from $29.99 in July to $32.69 in October— a 9% increase. It was $26.99 in May.

As tariff refunds near their completion and energy prices continue to climb, a number of food suppliers and grocers have warned that costs are rising. It could be about time for this watched pot to start boiling.

• Walmart is bracing for billions of dollars in additional fuel costs due to higher diesel prices.
• The company previously said it would put much of its $2.9 billion tariff refund toward lower prices.
• Now, higher fuel costs are likely to erase that benefit, and other retailers are likely to follow.

Just when US shoppers might have thought they dodged the tariff jab, energy costs are coming in with the right hook.

Deutsche Bank says Walmart executives are now expecting the added cost of higher diesel prices to wipe out their total expected benefit from tariff refunds and push prices back up, according to a Thursday analyst note following a meeting with Walmart CFO John David Rainey.

"Elevated diesel is pressuring WMT directly through transportation costs and indirectly as suppliers pass through higher costs, including on petroleum-linked products," the analysts wrote. "Elevated diesel costs are beginning to flow through to consumer prices"

The company is now expecting an additional half to one percentage point of inflation in 2027, the note said. At that rate, additional fuel costs this year and next year will completely erase Walmart's $2.9 billion tariff refund.

Walmart said in August that it had been putting the bulk of that tariff refund money toward lower prices for shoppers.

"Like other retailers, we are not immune to sustained increases in fuel and transportation costs, but we work to minimize their impact," a spokesperson told Business Insider.

The spokesperson also said that many of Walmart's current discounts and holiday deals are time-bound, after which some prices may return to regular levels.

"That should not be characterized as a broad-based price increase," the spokesperson said.

Beyond Walmart, which runs one of the most efficient supply chains in all of retail, the energy impact could be even more pronounced.

The Deutsche Bank analysts noted that competing retailers are also hiking prices in similar categories, leaving Walmart with the relative low-price advantage. The bank also upgraded its rating of Walmart's stock.