250 Years of Service: The Postal Service’s Enduring Commitment to Connecting Service Members and Loved Ones

The federal government shutdown that started Oct. 1 is just the latest in a host of challenges, along with tariffs, inflation and signs of economic weakness, that are bedeviling businesses as 2025 winds down. This makes smaller retailers — which lack the financial buffer most big chains have — especially vulnerable as the holidays approach. “Everyone loves shouting about shopping small or local, especially during the holiday season, but this year, small businesses are heading into their busiest period with a level of uncertainty they haven’t faced before,” said Jacob Bennett, co-founder and CEO of Crux Analytics, which works with small businesses and their banks. Summer ended sluggishly for the sector, according to the Fiserv Small Business Index for September, which leverages transaction data from more than 2 million U.S. small businesses across the country: Adjusted for inflation, retail sales dropped 1.4% year over year. Foot traffic is solid, but average basket size is down, according to Mike Spriggs, head of consumer insights at Fiserv. “That tells us the American consumer is still engaged — just price-aware and promotion-sensitive,” Spriggs said by email. Then there is the shutdown, which disrupted the loan program at the Small Business Administration — both access to new loans and management of existing ones. Among other consequences, this could disrupt inventory management, which has already been roiled by tariffs.

Despite the fact that the retail landscape continues to undergo massive waves of post-COVID evolution, there are many things that still haven’t changed — like the fact that consumers continue to go to physical stores to shop and that the physical portion of retailers' businesses still command the largest share of their revenues by a very large margin. Despite this, many retailers still only focus on the e-commerce sales impacts of their digital marketing, and ignore the in-store sales impacts because it's “difficult to measure.” This myopic focus is costing them — a lot. Web analytics tools or the measurements provided by the large platforms like Google and Meta have always relied on clicks to tell the story of campaign value. However, with major privacy changes in the market made by Apple and coming soon from Google, any measurement approach that relies on tracking individual consumers has been dying a death of a thousand cuts. Even measuring digital ads’ impact on e-commerce is getting a lot harder.

Amazon — a company that made more than $35 billion in profit in the first half of 2025 and is on track to spend more than $120 billion on AI this year — is laying off thousands of people, citing its desire to slim down and “operate like the world’s largest startup.” The overall message from Amazon reflected a familiar impulse in Corporate America to reduce headcount in the face of rising prices, an unpredictable trade war and a potential (though still largely speculative) artificial-intelligence revolution. Amazon isn’t alone: UPS on Tuesday announced it had cut some 48,000 workers this year; Target eliminated 1,800 corporate jobs last week “to be stronger, faster and better positioned” for the future, its new CEO said; and other spectacularly profitable tech players like Microsoft and Meta have also shed staff by the thousands recently. But the impulse, which tends to please Wall Street in the short term, also amounts to a giant gamble on a technology that has yet to prove it can deliver the efficiencies its backers have long promised.