The Economy Is K-Shaped — And Your Buyers Are Feeling It
RSM US LLP joined Shop Eat Surf Outdoor in August 2026 for a webinar covering where the economy stands heading into the second half of the year, and what wholesale brands need to act on before Q4.
RSM Deputy Chief Economist Kevin Depew was direct about the gap between what the headline numbers show and what consumers are actually experiencing. GDP growth is holding at 2.1% for the year. Inflation is expected to stay a full percentage point above the Fed's 2% target. On paper, the economy is stable.
On the ground, it's splitting sharply by income bracket. Top earners are still spending freely on travel, dining, and discretionary goods. The bottom three income brackets are not keeping pace — real wages are falling once inflation is factored in, the national savings rate has dropped to 2.6%, and 57% of consumers now report that high prices are cutting into their finances, up from 50% just a month earlier. Consumer confidence is near an all-time low.
For wholesale brands, the takeaway is not that demand is disappearing — it is that demand is concentrating. Buyers for green grass golf clubs, resort boutiques, and specialty retailers serving higher-income consumers are likely to see continued traffic. Brands relying on volume through mid-market or value-oriented accounts may face tighter open-to-buy and slower reorder cycles through the rest of the year.
The brands that win in a K-shaped environment are the ones that give their best accounts reasons to buy more — through tighter assortments, faster reorder capability, and 24/7 self-service that makes it easy for a buyer to complete an order at any point in the week, without waiting for a rep to be available.
IEEPA Tariff Refunds: The Cash That May Already Be Owed to You
RSM trade advisory senior manager Jodi Ader made the case that tariff refunds are no longer a compliance question — they are a cash flow opportunity that belongs at the executive level.
Following the Supreme Court's February ruling striking down IEEPA tariffs, which were replaced with a 10% Section 232 surcharge, the Customs and Border Protection ACE portal opened to accept refund claims in phases. Phase one (unliquidated entries) opened April 20. Phase two (entries flagged for reconciliation) launched June 29. Phase three (finally liquidated entries) is still pending and may require filing in the Court of International Trade. More than 125,000 claims have been accepted so far, with billions in refunds approved.
RSM shared two outcomes to illustrate the scale: one retailer recovered more than $4.8 million in refunds plus interest and then restructured sourcing to Vietnam and Guatemala, projecting an additional $1.5 million in annual savings. A second retail company secured $7.2 million within months of starting its review. Ader also noted that company size is not a barrier: a client that had paid roughly $75,000 in tariffs still found the process worth pursuing.
The three questions RSM recommends every executive ask their organization:
- Do we know our total tariff costs?
- Have we evaluated refund opportunities?
- Are we making sourcing decisions based on yesterday's tariff environment or tomorrow's?
For wholesale brands, recovering tariff overpayments does more than improve Q3 cash flow. It creates room to invest in the infrastructure — better ordering technology, ERP integration, inventory management — that reduces margin erosion regardless of what the tariff environment does next.
California's SB707 Is the First Textile EPR Law in the Country — and It Applies to You
RSM sustainability associate Samantha Rustja framed the shift happening in sustainability regulation in one sentence: "Accountability moved from what a company says to what a company actually makes."
California's SB707, the Responsible Textile Recovery Act, is the first textile extended producer responsibility law in the United States. It applies to any brand selling apparel, bags, backpacks, or home textiles into California with global turnover above one million dollars. Registration with Land Bell USA, the designated textile producer responsibility organization, became mandatory July 1. Reporting requirements are not expected to begin until at least 2028, and fee structures are still being finalized — but the registration window is open now, and the data infrastructure requirements are coming.
California's SB54, covering packaging, is already in effect. Companies were required to register with Circular Action Alliance and submit baseline plastic usage data with a source reduction plan due August 1.
For apparel and lifestyle wholesale brands, SB707 means sustainability is moving from brand-level claims to SKU-level documentation. The brands that will handle this smoothly are the ones with clean product data, organized SKU cataloging, and ERP infrastructure that can generate the kind of reporting these mandates will eventually require. Brands managing wholesale operations manually — across spreadsheets, disconnected portals, and paper order forms — will face a harder transition when reporting requirements arrive.
RSM's recommended steps: map your products and SKUs to covered categories, determine your registration obligations now, start building the data infrastructure for SKU-level reporting, and treat compliance as the foundation of a broader sustainability strategy rather than a one-time filing.
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