Millions flock to Barcelona every year to enjoy a sweet taste of idyllic European life. But over the weekend, thousands of locals marched through the streets and sprayed visitors with water guns in outrage over mass tourism.

Protesters were seen clapping and chanting, “Tourists go home!” and carrying signs with anti-tourist slogans, arguing that the flood of visitors has driven up living costs for residents. 

About 2,800 people participated in the protest according to the Guàrdia Urbana de Barcelona, the municipal city police force, Spanish paper El País reported. But members of the protest group, the Assemblea de Barris pel Decreixement Turístic, which translates to the Neighborhood Assembly for Tourist Degrowth, say as many as 20,000 joined, the paper reported.

“The tourism and hotels is the group that really makes big money, but all the people are in a very poor situation and they don’t have enough money to live. That’s the problem,” protester Joan Navarro-Bertran said. 

Barcelona is a gem in Western Europe, home to iconic sites like La Sagrada Familia — a cathedral designed by famed architect Antoni Gaudi that’s been under construction for more than 100 years — sparkling blue beaches and famous local cuisine. 

Tourism is also a major part of the local economy. Last year, about 26 million people visited the Barcelona area spending 9.6 billion euro (10.4 billion USD) in the city, according to the Tourism Observatory of Barcelona. 

A great part of the agitation among locals is the increasing price of housing and the displacement of long term residents.

Rent in the city has risen nearly 70% over the past decade, Mayor Jaume Collboni said, The BBC reported. In June, Collboni announced a plan to stop renewing permits for rentals used by foreign visitors by 2028, a move that would make 10,000 units available to locals in four years. 

The rise of Asian fast fashion retailer Shein already has Amazon on alert, but its plans of selling proprietary supply-chain technology and services to companies around the world has attracted attention from another corner: U.S. cybersecurity firms and national security experts who warn of the potential for a company with close ties to China spying on the supply chain as it seeks to grow its global logistics footprint.

Shein logistics software is in beta testing with select supply chain customers, according to a person familiar with its plans.

The U.S. supply chain has millions of connection points that link companies of all sizes. What makes the connections hum are application programming interfaces, or APIs, used by companies to increase efficiencies and save money. API software allows applications to communicate with each other in real-time and is crucial to logistics companies to integrate with freight providers, streamline operations, and create efficiencies for providers in their supply chain and ultimately, the end customer.

“The APIs in the logistics infrastructure are very interconnected, often without cybersecurity being contemplated,” said Lee Kair, principal and head of the transportation and innovation practice at The Chertoff Group, who formerly served as a top official at the Transportation Security Administration.

Cyber​​security experts and policy analysts say the supply chain of vendors is constantly changing, and the potential to gain data access is as simple as identifying the weakest link in a company’s data network. Typically, small companies have more vulnerable back-office systems, with weaker cyber protocols. “There is a tremendous amount of logistics integration in the world of fast fashion. These integrations can be compromised for nefarious purposes to expose customer data or compromise other connected systems,” Kair said.

According to data from Exiger, a supply chain intelligence intelligence company used by the U.S. government and critical infrastructure industries for risk management, there is a complex web of entities connected to Shein which indicates the company’s supply chain is more expansive and complex than most people realize. 

Exiger data shows that while Shein has 44 direct relationships, such as with its parent company Zoetop, and discloses over 5,000 suppliers, an analysis of all of its materials producers shows a supply chain connectivity map that expands substantially. In all, 10,821 companies comprise a supply chain one tier away from Shein. Drilling down deeper into that network of those Shein partners, it expands to 50,000-plus entities, including major U.S. companies, such as Forever 21, operated by Authentic Holdings and mall operator Simon Property Group — both of which announced formal partnerships with Shein last year focused on access to bricks-and-mortar retail.

Allowing Shein to embed its technology within U.S. supply chains could undermine the competitive landscape, violate regulatory standards, and introduce a host of risks, including cybersecurity, said Dewardric McNeal, managing director and senior policy analyst at Longview Global, who served as a policy expert on Asia for the Obama administration’s Department of Defense.

“Given the intricate nature of the U.S. and global supply chains, the potential for espionage or data gathering is a significant risk,” McNeal said. “Shein’s software could provide unprecedented access to sensitive supply chain data, which the Chinese government could seize under its laws. This exposure poses a direct threat to U.S. supply chain integrity, making it vulnerable to exploitation and manipulation.”

Shein has made moves to distance itself from Chinese affiliations. In 2022, Shein moved its headquarters from China to Singapore for regulatory and financial reasons. However, the company’s supply chains and warehouses are still in China.

“The concern of any company with significant Chinese ownership and physical presence is the legal framework in China,” Kair said. “Chinese law requires the company’s cooperation in providing sensitive information related to U.S. citizens to the Chinese government. Even with a headquarters based in Singapore, company supply chain data could be subject to seizure by the Chinese. This is a clear vulnerability of U.S. customer data.”

Kair referred to the moving of the company’s headquarters from China to Singapore to ease regulatory scrutiny as another example of the practice known as “Singapore washing.”

There are certifications in place for companies to prove their information security controls meet accepted corporate standards, including a SOC2 Type II Report created by a third party auditing firm to examine a company’s internal controls and how well they safeguard customer data — an audit that can take several months or more. The other primary certification is an ISO 27001 certification, which is the international industry standard for information security management systems, and its extension, ISO 27701 — both of which Shein says are among its implementation of industry standard controls to protect customers’ data.

“We try to limit our data collection to the minimum amount of information necessary to process commercial transactions,” Shein said in a statement to CNBC. “We have built systems in accordance with leading data protection frameworks such as the International Standards Organization’s standard 27001 and 27701,” it stated.

The International Standards Organization, which maintains ISO standards, explained by email that it does not carry out any certifications, which are issued independently of ISO by the various national and international certification bodies operating around the world. “As such, the ISO Central Secretariat doesn’t have a database of these certifications,” it wrote. Certified companies have an obligation to inform customers of the name of the organization having issued the certificate, and verification of certification should be addressed to that certification organization. CNBC searched the ISO’s IAF CertSearch database to find a certificate for Shein or its parent company Zoetop, but no certificate validation was found.

Shein told CNBC that it has the relevant certifications from third-party auditors.

To allay national security concerns, Shein has set up data storage in respective markets. It stores U.S. customer data within Microsoft U.S.-based Azure cloud and AWS US-based cloud. In the EU, customer data is stored in Frankfurt, Germany. Payment data is not collected by the company in the U.S., but by American payment processing company, Worldpay, which is majority owned by public equity firm GTCR.

The data stored in China covers its industrial supplier management and digital merchant system, which facilitates the transactions from garment raw materials — ancillary materials like buttons, zippers — in moving the product in China.

Ram Ben Tzion, co-founder and CEO of Publican, a digital vetting platform for global trade, tells CNBC it is possible for Shein, and the Chinese government, to misuse supply chain and consumer data. He says the effort to raise Shein’s profile as a global logistics provider is directly related to the intensifying economic battle between the U.S. and China. “You are now seeing this new business service being offered,” said Ben Tzion.

“Pushing Shein as a logistics company is a response or retaliation to the U.S. tightening up everything outsourcing from China,” he said. “This is a way for China to regain a hold on the global supply chain,” he added, referring to the flow of trade away from China, and Chinese giants finding it difficult to raise capital in the U.S. market.

Shein’s manufacturing and supply chain infrastructure has also presented legal issues for partners and political blowback in the U.S. related to the longstanding international issue of forced labor in China. The source familiar with Shein’s operations said it is in compliance with policies from Social Accountability International, an NGO that sets strict international fair labor standards.

McNeal said there are significant concerns about Shein’s supply chains being deeply intertwined with forced labor from Xinjiang Province in potential violation of the Uyghur Forced Labor Protection Act. “Supporting a company with such links contradicts U.S. regulatory efforts and ethical standards and could increase scrutiny from the Department of Homeland Security’s, Customs and Border Patrol and the UFLPA Entities List Office,” he said. 

Shein’s planned U.S. IPO is considered “all but dead,” with several powerful political figures in the nation’s capital among those who sought to block it for reasons including its supply chain issues and use of trade loopholes (Shein is now pursuing a potential London listing instead). Shein has also been spurned by the U.S. retail industry’s largest trade group, into which it sought membership.

Shein’s cybersecurity protocols have previously come under fire. In October 2022, the New York Attorney General fined Shein, its affiliate Romwe, and parent company Zoetop for $1.9 million over its handling of a 2018 data breach in which 39 million Shein accounts and seven million Romwe accounts were stolen, including accounts for more than 800,000 New York residents. 

“Data ownership and protecting against cybersecurity threats are absolutely essential in the context of global supply chains,” said Srini Cherukuri, vice president of IT infrastructure & chief information security officer at ITS Logistics. “Conducting due diligence of data security and privacy practices of everyone in the supply chain is crucial to protecting against cybersecurity attacks, mitigating impacts, and optimizing the recovery time of business operations.”

Shein’s dominance lies in the company’s hyper-flexible supply chain, according to a recent report from supply chain intelligence firm Zero100. It found that using over 5,400 nearby factories in Guangzhou for micro-batch production, the company is able to work with rapi design-to-delivery cycles, lower production costs, and minimize inventory risk. Led by founder Chris Xu’s deep knowledge of SEO and online marketing, Shein has also developed a data-driven approach to fuel its growth.

Integrating continuous, real-time AI data across its marketplace platform, Shein enables “dynamic demand-supply matching, data-driven trendspotting, and algorithmic supplier selection, with AI outputs feeding into subsequent models for comprehensive decision-making across the value chain,” Zero100 stated.

That supply chain efficiency is being hailed as a positive, but Ben Tzion said that smaller manufacturers and social media influencers should understand that China’s effort to push Shein as a logistics company “is an attempt to distance itself from the liabilities associated with its trade practices and push it on to smaller business owners.”

Using Shein for logistics also means giving up all control of their supply chain and followers. “It is a safe assumption to say using a third-party like Shein for manufacturing and production will give Shein complete access to all company information, as well as its consumers and followers’ shopping habits,” he said.

Logistics services tied to production of items like sneakers and apparel in Asia require multiple supply chain touchpoints.

“The average touch point for a sneaker and apparel is 5.6,” said Eric Fullerton, senior director of product marketing for supply chain research firm Project44. “These shipments on average use three out of four modes of transportation [ocean, rail, truck, air].”

According to Project44′s analysis, sneakers and apparel travel an average of 42% around the world during the manufacturing process. The average distance traveled from the factory to the distribution center is 9,630 miles. That is long enough to walk back and forth across the United States nearly four times. The average shipment travels through 8.4 states in the US.

“If you are an old school retailer, you don’t want to give your sales, inventory, geographic strategy to a fast fashion competitor that could make a knockoff product,” Fullerton said. “In a supply chain crisis, would Shein prioritize the supply chain fulfillment of a competitor or would they prioritize their own?

In a retail world of razor-thin margins, more organizations see supply chain efficiency as a way to win the battle of the purse strings. “Not only would Shein be able to knock off the product, but they would also be able to identify the region where it is selling and for how much,” Fullerton said. “This supply chain data would provide Shein with the ability to see a company’s distribution strategy.”

Amassing supply chain data makes sense for Shein from both financial and strategic standpoints, according to McNeal. “Purchasing this software provides Shein with an additional revenue stream, thereby strengthening its financial position and competitive edge in the market,” he said. In addition, using Shein’s supply chain services and software, foreign companies grant it access to their data. “This access enables Shein to enhance its AI and algorithmic models, leading to more efficient operations and better market intelligence for Shein,” McNeal said.

That may ultimately place firms at odds with a growing Asian retail and logistics giant. “This makes foreign firms vulnerable to over-reliance on a competitor, potentially compromising their own ability to harness and use their data and strengthen their supply chain and logistics operations.”

Shein’s rapid rise has led Amazon to deepen its own ties within China. CNBC recently learned that Amazon plans to launch a new section on its site dedicated to low-priced fashion and lifestyle items that will allow Chinese sellers to ship directly to U.S. consumers. In December, Amazon announced a new “innovation center” in Shenzhen, a popular technology and manufacturing hub, and it also slashed the fees it charges merchants selling clothing priced below $20.

Meanwhile, the U.S. government has a close eye on companies with ties to China and where supply chains or data relationships are a national security issue, Kair said. “The scrutiny on Shein by U.S. regulators and legislators is consistent with their supply chain and data security concerns of other companies such as TikTok, DJI drones, and manufacturers of cranes operated in U.S. ports.”

A Department of Transportation spokesperson referred CNBC to the Commerce Department and the National Security Council. A Department of Commerce spokesperson wrote in an email that it is, “committed to protecting U.S. information and communications technology supply chains. We will continue to proactively identify and mitigate vulnerabilities in the U.S. ICTS supply chain and safeguard our national security.”

More consolidation, more problems — that’s the latest fear gripping the theatrical industry.

After a monthslong negotiation process, Paramount and Skydance have struck a merger agreement. While the proposed union has been touted as perfect match by those involved, Hollywood’s cinema operators have their concerns.

Namely, that continued consolidation in the industry will exacerbate production woes that have led to fewer film releases in recent years.

“A merger that results in fewer movies being produced will not only hurt consumers and result in less revenue, but negatively impact people who work in all sectors of this great industry — creative, distribution and exhibition,” Michael O’Leary, president and CEO of the National Association of Theatre Owners, or NATO, said in a statement Monday.

Paramount and Skydance have long been production partners, co-financing and distributing films from the Mission: Impossible, Star Trek, Terminator and Transformers franchises, among others.

Skydance founder David Ellison during an investor call Monday touted that Paramount and Skydance have produced 30 feature films together. He said the deal would “unify the key rights to several of Paramount’s most iconic franchises” and “allow us to expand franchise management.”

However, each company has other producing partners, and it is unclear how this merger could affect production going forward.

“The entire industry will be closely following how Skydance and Paramount’s release slate evolves in the coming years,” said Shawn Robbins, founder and owner of Box Office Theory. “I think it’s fair to say there’s cautious optimism right now. It’s a different situation than if another major studio had stepped in to acquire Paramount, which would have more likely cannibalized the output of theatrical content to a significant extent. Nothing is certain right now.”

Trepidation around the merger from groups such as NATO comes on the heels of the consolidation of Disney and 20th Century Fox back in 2019. Before the two studios merged, each was releasing around a dozen titles every year, according to data from The Numbers. Since 2021, the combined studio has only released about a dozen films per year.

And, so far in 2024, the two studios have only debuted three titles.

“Merger-phobia is a result of the concerns that theater owners have over the effect that a diminishing number of films in the marketplace has on their bottom line,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore. “It’s all about the product and a robust pipeline of big screen offerings keeps the industry humming along and ensures momentum, which is key to success at the multiplex.”

The theatrical industry as a whole has struggled with a slower influx of titles. Pandemic shutdowns crippled production and were followed by a dual Hollywood strike that also disrupted the pipeline of new films. While box office analysts expect the number of films to increase in 2025 and 2026, there remains uncertainty around whether production will ever return to pre-pandemic levels.

“However, despite being a volume-driven business, it’s more about the quality of the releases and their appeal to audiences than sheer quantity,” said Dergarabedian. “If you have fewer films chasing the same dollars, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. If there are fewer films but the average revenue per film is higher than in a more crowded movie marketplace, then that’s a lean and mean and ultimately more sustainable business in the long run.”

One immediate bright spot is that the merger between Paramount and Skydance will bring together Skydance Animation and Nickelodeon. Former NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell, who is slated to become the next president of Paramount when the deal closes, told investors Monday, “we’re going to immediately be a leader in animation.”

“From a theatrical perspective, animation is so important and Paramount is very strong with Nickelodeon,” he said during the investor call.

Animated features have seen strong box office sales this summer. Disney and Pixar’s “Inside Out 2” has collected $1.2 billion at the global box office over the past month, the fifth-highest haul for an animated feature ever. Its $533.8 million domestic tally is the third-highest for an animated film.

Universal and Illumination’s “Despicable Me 4” snared $122 million during its five-day domestic debut over the Fourth of July holiday weekend.

“A Paramount that recognizes the unique place of theatres in communities across this nation and around the world will be a catalyst for more movie options being available for movie fans today and for generations of new fans in the years ahead,” NATO’s O’Leary said. “We look forward to hearing more about this proposal and working with all interested parties in achieving the critical goal of more movies on the big screen.”

Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC.

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq closed at record highs on Monday as investors await key inflation data to provide further clues about whether this year’s market rally is sustainable. Earnings from some major financial giants and consumer companies are also on the docket.

The broad market index ended the day up 0.1% at 5,572.85, while the Nasdaq Composite advanced 0.28% to 18,403.74. The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished 31 points lower, or 0.08%, at 39,344.79.

The S&P 500 is coming off its fourth positive week in the last five amid ongoing optimism that easing inflation — and any pockets of weakness in the economy — could lead to a Federal Reserve interest rate cut.

The June consumer price index, which will be released Thursday, could bolster those hopes if the headline number shows a slight improvement. Producer price index data will be released Friday.

Last week, labor data reflected a slightly cooling jobs market, spurring expectations of a rate cut. Although the U.S. economy added more jobs in June than anticipated, there was also an unexpected rise in the unemployment rate, to 4.1% from 4%. Traders are currently expecting two interest rate cuts in 2024, with the first in September, according to the CME FedWatch Tool.

“We believe the fundamental backdrop remains supportive for equities, driven by solid economic and earnings growth, interest rate cuts, and rising investment in AI,” UBS strategist Vincent Heaney wrote in a Monday note.

PepsiCo and Delta Air Lines are set to post results on Thursday. Then, a slew of major banks, including Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase, will kick off second-quarter earnings season on Friday.

Employment scams surged last year, as criminals leveraged artificial intelligence to steal money and personal information from unsuspecting job seekers, experts said.

Consumer reports of job scams jumped 118% in 2023 from the prior year, according to a recent report by the Identity Theft Resource Center.

Thieves generally pose as recruiters and post fake job listings to entice applicants, then steal valuable information during the “interview” process.

Often, they put these phony listings on reputable websites like LinkedIn and other job search platforms, ITRC said, making it tough to disentangle truth from fiction.

A chief danger is divulging information about financial accounts or sensitive personal data (like a Social Security number) that criminals can then use to steal a job seeker’s identity.

Consumers reported losing $367 million to job and business opportunity scams in 2022, up 76% year over year, according to the Federal Trade Commission.

The typical victim lost a “whopping” $2,000, the FTC said.

Job scams aren’t the most prevalent fraud: They accounted for only 9% of total identity scams in 2023, second to Google Voice scams, which totaled 60%, ITRC said. (Google Voice scams trick people into sharing a Google verification code, which scammers can use for nefarious ends. They often target people on Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace.)

However, employment scams are an “emerging” threat, said ITRC president and CEO Eva Velasquez.

“Job scams have been around since there were jobs,” Velasquez said. ”[But] they’ll continue to grow because of a number of external factors that are occurring.”

AI advancements are one of those factors: They allow scammers to generate job listings and recruitment messages that look and feel more legitimate, experts said.

“AI tools help refine the ‘pitch’ to make it more believable as well as compensate for cultural and grammar differences in language usage,” according to the ITRC report.

What’s more, the rise of remote work during the pandemic era have made workers and job seekers more comfortable with digital-only transactions, Velasquez said.

Job seekers may never see a physical person during a phony hiring or interview process: They may interact with a supposed recruiter only via text or WhatsApp message, Velasquez said, which amounts to a “big red flag.”

Recent college grads, immigrants or other people new to the U.S. workforce may think such digital-only hiring normal, especially for fully remote jobs, she said. But hiring generally doesn’t work this way, she added.

Con artists will “push you for money” during the hiring process, the FTC said.

They may send an invoice for advance payment of on-the-job equipment (like a computer ) or job training. They promise to reimburse you, but won’t, according to the federal agency.

Scammers may also ask for your personal information — like a driver’s license, Social Security number or bank account details — upfront in order to fill out “employment paperwork,” the FTC said.

“Scammers will promise you a great job, but what they really want is your money and your personal information,” New York Secretary of State Robert Rodriguez said in a consumer alert this year.

Job seekers should not expect to have to hand over personal information until after they’ve received and accepted a job offer, Velasquez said. (While this is a good screen for legitimacy, it may not provide a safety guarantee in all cases, she said.)

Ultimately, “there’s no sure-fire way to detect” job opportunity scams, according to the FTC.

Here’s what you should know and how you can better protect yourself, according to Velasquez and the FTC: 

Don’t have a false sense of security on well-known job search platforms.

Independently verify the company exists and is hiring. Don’t accept a job offer until you’ve done your own research.

Be wary if you didn’t initiate contact with a prospective employer or recruiter. Instead, reach out to the company directly using contact information you know is legit.

Only limited personal information is generally required during the application process: name, phone number, job and education history, and perhaps email and home address, Velasquez said.

Digital-only interactions are a red flag. However, phone calls are also not a guarantee of security.

Honest employers won’t send you a check to buy supplies or anything else, then ask you to send back the leftover money. This is a fake check scam.

Be wary of something that sounds too good to be true. For example, a job ad for 100% remote work that requires few skills and a huge salary “is not realistic,” Velasquez said.

Inflation may be cooling, but consumers’ outrage over higher prices is running hot.

TikTok users blasted Walmart for rolling out digital shelf labels that allow it to quickly raise and lower prices. Wendy’s backpedaled after its CEO suggested the burger chain may start using dynamic pricing. And at some Chipotle locations, customers filmed workers to try to make sure they didn’t skimp on their burrito bowls.

The three joined a growing list of consumer brands contending with customers’ deep frustration over high prices — and wariness that prices will only rise more. Many retailers, restaurants and other consumer companies have seen sales fall as shoppers pull back their spending. Businesses are now trying to convince customers that they offer the best deals, fueling a rise in discounts, promotions and value meals.

Consumers are fed up with deceptive pricing, said Jean-Pierre Dubé, a professor of marketing at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. They’ve seen smaller items on shelves, paid tacked-on fees and felt pressure to tip workers for things they didn’t tip for in the past.

“We’re reaching a boiling point on this,” he said.

The companies stocking grocery aisles contend consumer perception is skewed. Grocery prices have risen just 1% in the past year. But food at home prices have climbed more than 24% since May 2019, stretching consumers’ wallets and stoking anger with companies.

Consumers’ buying power has also increased as inflation cools and the job market remains strong, boosting real hourly earnings for the average private sector worker, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

Other key costs are raising Americans’ expenses, such as electricity and rent, which have climbed over the last 12 months.

“People experience the price of consumer products constantly, and that does tend to be a focus of what they can remember buying last,” said David Chavern, president of the Consumer Brands Association, a trade group representing Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble and dozens of other consumer packaged goods companies. “But the reality is that what’s happening in the grocery store, in the drug store has not been a source of material inflation over the last 12 to 18 months.”

In a Pew Research Center survey from May, 62% of U.S. adults said inflation was “a very big problem in the country today,” a higher percentage than any other issues they were asked about including illegal immigration, gun violence, violent crime and the federal budget deficit.

That percentage has held roughly steady, even as inflation cools. In the year-ago survey by Pew, 65% of Americans said inflation was a very big problem.

Inflation has also become a major talking point on the presidential campaign trail. Former President Donald Trump has blamed President Joe Biden, while has Biden accused companies of greed.

Grocery inflation may be back to pre-pandemic levels, but that hasn’t eased the frustration of Americans who are paying way more than they did years ago.

Consumers, businesses and the Federal Reserve will get the latest read on inflation on Thursday, when the federal government reports the consumer price index for June.

Dianna Campbell, 69, a TV producer and consultant in Manhattan, said she’s noticed prices rising and staying high, whether it’s for laundry detergent or a restaurant meal.

“You’re paying more for it, but you’re giving me less, and the quality is worse,” she said.

Campbell isn’t the only consumer angry about shrinkflation, the practice of cutting an item’s size, but not its price.

Over the past year, the term has become a household phrase through references in pop culture and politics. In March, both the Cookie Monster and Biden called out shrinkflation by name, the former for reducing the size of his beloved treats and the latter for decimating Snickers bars. (Snickers’ parent company, Mars, denied skimping on the chocolate bars).

Customers have seen plenty of other examples on trips to the grocery store.

In a report on shrinkflation, Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., called out Gatorade for swapping out a 32-ounce bottle for a 28-ounce version and keeping the same price.

Gatorade denies that it changed its packaging for profits. PepsiCo spokesperson Andrea Foote told CNBC that the 28-ounce bottle of Gatorade has been around for more than a decade, and widening its distribution was part of the company’s long-term strategy, not a response to the current economic climate.

Retailers have also been accused of shrinking the size of private label items. Walmart, for instance, cut the number of sheets in its Great Value paper towel rolls from 168 to 120 but did not reduce the price. Company spokeswoman Tricia Moriarty said it’s not shrinkflation because Walmart reformulated the product to make each sheet more absorbent.

Awareness of shrinking portions contributed to recent backlash against Chipotle. After some customers thought their burrito bowls were smaller, they began filming the workers making their orders and posting the videos on TikTok.

In an interview with Jim Cramer on CNBC’s “Mad Money” in late May, CEO Brian Niccol said Chipotle has not reduced portion sizes and described the TikTok trend of filming workers as “a little rude.”

“The whole thing is kind of crazy to me,” he said. “We’ve always said we want to give people great portions. We want to give them what they want.”

Wells Fargo analyst Zachary Fadem tested out the theory himself, ordering 75 burrito bowls from eight New York City Chipotle restaurants and weighing them. The burrito bowls’ weight varied based on location, leading the analyst to conclude that consistency was the issue — not shrinkflation.

But the feeling of paying more and getting less isn’t just in consumers’ heads. It’s become a common experience when shoppers stock up on groceries and get ready for backyard barbecues.

This July 4, for example, customers paid an average of $71.22 for a cookout for 10 people, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation. That’s up 5% from last year and 30% from 2019.

Wendy’s and Walmart have also recently felt fury from consumers concerned about getting ripped off.

In late February, the burger chain had to backpedal after CEO Kirk Tanner told investors that Wendy’s would test features as soon as 2025 that included “dynamic pricing” — such as adjusting menu prices to drive demand during slower times of the day. Wendy’s later said that it had no plans to raise prices when demand is highest and blamed misleading media reports for the uproar.

More recently, social media users criticized Walmart over its decision to roll out digital shelf labels, higher-tech price tags that allow it to quickly and easily change prices. The retailer said last month that it would add the technology to more of its stores and plans to have them in 2,300 locations, or roughly half of its U.S. footprint, by 2026.

On TikTok, some saw the move as the first step toward the nation’s largest retailer using dynamic pricing, the practice of raising and lowering prices based on demand, similar to Uber’s surge pricing.

Walmart, on the other hand, said the new price tags will cut a tedious task from store workers’ to-do lists. Digital shelf labels are designed to save time, Walmart spokeswoman Cristina Rodrigues said. They have LED lights that blink to guide store workers who are restocking items or to help them find products for a customer’s online order. They eliminate the need for store workers to swap out traditional paper tags.

She said Walmart has “no plan to change the frequency or implement different pricing methods.” She said all price changes will still be approved by the merchandising team. With the tech, a store worker has to stand in front of the shelf and use a mobile app to raise or lower the price, she said.

Dubé of University of Chicago said the pushback comes from years of shoppers feeling ripped off by price increases.

“Consumers’ automatic reaction is, ‘This sounds like yet another unfair thing firms are going to do to try and cheat us,’” he said. “The presumption is this is just another attempt to screw them over.”

But he added dynamic pricing can have silver linings if restaurants and retailers pursue it. Prices can go down as well as up, he said. In Europe, for example, some grocery stores cut prices toward the end of the day to accelerate sales of baked goods or perishable items and reduce food waste. If Wendy’s lowered prices during slower times, he said customers could actually get cheaper meals.

But consumers don’t have to wait much longer to start seeing lower prices.

As foot traffic declines for retailers and restaurants, some are leaning into value to bring back customers. Over the past couple of months, Target, McDonald’s, Aldi and others have stepped up price cuts and debuted new deals for customers.

Walmart said it rolled back prices on nearly 7,000 items in its food categories in the first quarter of the year. Amazon-owned Whole Foods reduced prices over the last six months on about 25% of its items, including nearly 900 of its private label items. And a slew of fast-food chains, from McDonald’s to Starbucks to Burger King, have recently unveiled new value meals to drive sales.

Consumer packaged goods companies are also reversing course as their volumes decline and investors fret over lagging sales. During Covid, companies like Mondelez stopped promotions as they focused on keeping up with demand and navigating supply chain snarls.

But now Mondelez is one of the companies looking to bring back consumers with lower prices. The snacking company, which owns Oreos and Clif bars, is expecting a challenging year for its U.S. business, as low-income consumers buy its cookies and crackers less frequently. Mondelez executives said in June that they’re planning promotions for brands like Chips Ahoy!, which tends to lose ground to cheaper private-label options. The company also cut prices on some of its larger pack sizes.

“The top priority is really to keep on growing the company and keep on delivering volume growth,” Mondelez CFO Luca Zaramella said at the Evercore ISI Consumer & Retail Conference last month.

Kroger, which carries many of those items, has noticed that trend, too.

Kroger CEO Rodney McMullen said on an earnings call in mid-June that brands are spending more of their own money to offer discounts to customers and drive more volume. And he said the level of promotions is similar to pre-pandemic.

It remains to be seen whether companies can tamp down consumer outrage as the deals and discounts start to take hold.

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq closed at record highs on Monday as investors await key inflation data to provide further clues about whether this year’s market rally is sustainable. Earnings from some major financial giants and consumer companies are also on the docket.

The broad market index ended the day up 0.1% at 5,572.85, while the Nasdaq Composite advanced 0.28% to 18,403.74. The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished 31 points lower, or 0.08%, at 39,344.79.

The S&P 500 is coming off its fourth positive week in the last five amid ongoing optimism that easing inflation — and any pockets of weakness in the economy — could lead to a Federal Reserve interest rate cut.

The June consumer price index, which will be released Thursday, could bolster those hopes if the headline number shows a slight improvement. Producer price index data will be released Friday.

Last week, labor data reflected a slightly cooling jobs market, spurring expectations of a rate cut. Although the U.S. economy added more jobs in June than anticipated, there was also an unexpected rise in the unemployment rate, to 4.1% from 4%. Traders are currently expecting two interest rate cuts in 2024, with the first in September, according to the CME FedWatch Tool.

“We believe the fundamental backdrop remains supportive for equities, driven by solid economic and earnings growth, interest rate cuts, and rising investment in AI,” UBS strategist Vincent Heaney wrote in a Monday note.

PepsiCo and Delta Air Lines are set to post results on Thursday. Then, a slew of major banks, including Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase, will kick off second-quarter earnings season on Friday.