#retail
Retail operations, delivery fees, and store-level compliance
Lululemon FY2026 Q2: net revenue $2.416B (−4%), comparable sales −9% with Americas at −12%, and net income $329M (−11%). The 60.5% gross margin includes 560 basis points from $134.5M of IEEPA tariff refunds, inventories sit at $1,711M near the cycle high, and full-year guidance was cut to $10.35–10.5B — all tracked in a public Beancount ledger spanning FY2021–FY2026Q2.
TJX FY2027 Q2: net sales $15.18B (+5%), consolidated comps +4% above plan, and net income $1.52B. Reported pretax margin of 13.3% includes a 1.4-point net IEEPA tariff-refund benefit ($331M refunds less $112M compensation accruals); adjusted pretax margin is 11.9%, up 0.5 points, and adjusted diluted EPS is $1.22 versus $1.36 reported. Cash ended at $6.0B, inventories at $7.86B with per-store +2% — all tracked in a public Beancount ledger spanning FY2022–FY2027Q2.
The Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act applies to every written warranty on a consumer product costing more than $10, requiring a full or limited title, forbidding blanket disclaimers of implied warranties and brand-name parts requirements, and mandating pre-sale access to the terms above $15. A small-seller guide with a 10-point compliance checklist.
Under the ADA a service animal is a dog individually trained to perform a disability-related task; emotional support animals do not qualify. Businesses may ask only two questions, cannot demand papers, vests or fees, and may remove a dog only if it is out of control or not housebroken. Covers the staff script, the FDA Food Code kitchen line, why housing (HUD) and airlines (DOT) differ, the 35 state fake-service-animal laws, and how to track compliance costs.
Nearly 40 states cap emergency price increases — California at 10% above your own pre-emergency price — and most statutes require no proof of bad intent, only an increase past the threshold. Penalties reach $5,000 per violation in North Carolina and $20,000 in Texas, and the cost-justification defense works only if dated price snapshots and supplier invoices already exist.
How to keep the books for a gas station with a convenience store — splitting fuel from inside sales, tracking tank inventory in gallons, booking lottery as an agency arrangement, recording tobacco buydowns, and keeping card fees off the revenue line. U.S. convenience stores rang up a record $341 billion of in-store sales in 2025, yet NACS found the average in-store basket lost roughly seven cents per transaction after expenses.
A tortilleria's masa cost per dozen moves about 5 cents when yield shifts 10 percent — the entire profit on a wholesale dozen. How to cost masa by measured yield, split retail and wholesale revenue and COGS, book presses and ovens under Section 179 or 7-year MACRS, and track the five KPIs that expose a losing route before the bank does.
Alabama's two-month grocery tax holiday ended June 30, 2026, and the 2% state tax on food resumed July 1 — with city and county food taxes never having paused. This is the register-by-register POS checklist and month-end bookkeeping routine that keeps the straddle-period July return tying out, covering cutoff transactions, prepared-food classification, SNAP tender confusion, and the uncollected-tax exposure retailers owe themselves.
Ten US states run container-deposit programs with deposits from 5 to 25 cents, and retailers must ring them as a separate line, take back empties of brands they sell, and book them as a liability rather than revenue — while handling fees of roughly 1 to 5 cents per container are the only part that is income.
Illinois replaced its pawnbroker statute with the Pawnbroker Regulation Act of 2023, ending auto-title advances under a pawn license, capping active licenses at 250 statewide (150 in specified populous counties), and adding electronic police reporting plus aggregate data collection. Here is how to structure a pawn shop's chart of accounts, book forfeitures at lower of cost or net realizable value, and run off title-secured balances separately.
From 1 April 2026 Wales replaced its single non-domestic rates multiplier with three — 0.350 for retail under £51,000 rateable value, 0.502 standard, 0.515 above £100,000 — and is phasing revaluation increases above £300 at 33% in 2026-27 and 66% in 2027-28 with £116 million of transitional relief. Here is how to check which multiplier applies, verify the relief line on your bill, and budget the pre-programmed step-ups.
Florida's 2026 omnibus tax bill (H7031E) moved the back-to-school sales tax holiday to July 20–August 20, added a September 1–December 31 hunting, fishing and camping holiday with no price cap on hunting supplies, and permanently exempted propane tanks of 20 lbs or less. This guide lists every item cap and location exclusion, explains the university-contractor and home-hardening refund programs, and gives Florida retailers a register-programming and bookkeeping checklist to stay audit-ready.
