Blogs and Articles | Antony Karabus

17 2026 March

The ‘Middle’ Collapses: First Quarter of 2026 Off to a Hard Start

The retail landscape of 2026 is being defined by a brutal Darwinian culling. While the industry has seen its share of turbulence over the last...

05 2026 March

The Great Retail Reversal: Why Walmart is Winning the P/E Valuation War Against Amazon

As I reported before, there are fewer than a handful of very large retailers that consistently outperform the tech giants, such as Google and Microsoft,...

03 2026 March

Luxury and Value Retail Dominate Canada

The retail and fashion apparel landscape has undergone significant changes in the past decade, with the traditional department store retailers seeing their dominance erode, losing...

23 2026 February

The $850 Billion Hangover: Why Retail’s ‘Free Returns’ Era Must End

For years, the retail industry has been locked in a high-stakes game of follow-the-leader, with Amazon setting the rules. The primary rule? Shipping and returns...

16 2026 February

Why Retailers Should Buy versus Build Key AI Capabilities to Differentiate

In the 2026 retail landscape, a dangerous trap a retailer can fall into is the “DIY Delusion” — the belief that to be cutting-edge, you...

04 2026 February

The Great Retail Bifurcation: Luxury Giants and Discount Kings Redefine the Global Closet

As consumption concentrates in the top 10% of earners, the apparel landscape has split into a “high-low” market — fueling the rise of LVMH, off-price...

26 2026 January

Private Equity in Retail: Many Failures, Some Successes

As reported in my most recent column, 2025 marked a year of major retail failures. Most were due to a variety of factors, both internal...

15 2026 January

Retail’s Big Shakeup: Major Brands File for Chapter 11 Amid High Debt and Stiff Competition

After Saks Global shuffled its C-suite over the past month, the luxury retailer filed for bankruptcy as has been widely anticipated following large ongoing negative...

12 2025 December

Amazon’s Free Return Policy Crisis: Why $850 Billion in Returns is Crushing Retailers

Amazon’s online dominance was born out of a customer-centric model in which convenience reigns supreme. And a key tenet of that model is to offer...