We’ve been watching for months to get the inside track on Fall/Holiday. Walmart is ubiquitous on the engines but their search copy isn’t dragging in buyers with special offers. Nor is Sears, Target, Macy’s, JC Penney or other big-boxers. Old Navy is the one stand-out going for marketshare with 40% off. I’m hopeful this stays the exception. Retailer’s p/l’s can’t take another bloodbath 2nd half. With less inventory and a year’s worth of vendor concessions, operating margins need less topline price pressure to get their profit souls back.

A quick call-out on Garnet Hill…we’ve not seen them promote in the back-to-school category, certainly not with non-brand keywords. There’s not much noise around them, so I’ll bet they’re seeing some nice gains.

The BTS market is going to heat up over the next 10 days, so we’ll know more by Labor Day but it’ll all be over. I’m rooting for the consumer. They’re showing up, but we’ll see how long their memories are for those killer deals last year.

Chris Paradysz is CEO of PM Digital.