American retailers and consumers are entering the first holiday shopping season in three years without crushing supply-chain pressures. Industry executives are projecting full store shelves this year as retailers work through gluts in product categories from toys to furniture, a sharp contrast with the scramble for goods over the past two years. The WSJ’s Austen Hufford and Sharon Terlep report that executives credit broad factors for the improved outlook, including a change in supply-chain strategies to emphasize earlier delivery lead times and heftier inventories. That’s carrying a cost for retailers: Target is rolling out deep holiday discounts and shortening lead times for product orders after shipments arrived more quickly than anticipated. The pressures haven’t totally receded: While West Coast container ship delays largely have been resolved, the East Coast has a backlog of 67 ships, according to Goldman Sachs. And truckers report warehouses and inland rail hubs remain clogged.

• Improved shipping reliability is leaving some retail importers with too much inbound stock. (The Loadstar)
• Union Pacific says it will take until the end of the year to clear ocean container congestion at its Chicago and Dallas rail yards. (Journal of Commerce)

Department stores may be getting control of the supply side, but the demand side is proving a tough sell. Sales at big chains Macy’s and Kohl’s fell in the most recent quarter as shoppers delayed their holiday purchases. The WSJ’s Suzanne Kapner reports the retailers believe buying patterns of shoppers this year are reverting to pre-pandemic trends, when they tended to wait in the hopes of scoring last-minute deals. That’s adding uncertainty even as the stores align their inventories following last year’s chaotic holidays. Macy’s inventory was up just 4% compared with a year ago, a better result than some rivals with bloated stocks. Kohl’s ended the quarter with 34% more inventory, an improvement from the 48% increase the preceding quarter. Both saw sales slow in October and November, and now they’re hoping that consumers are getting more leisurely about shopping and not pushing it off altogether.

The U.S. solar supply chain is getting a boost from Italy. Italian energy giant Enel is readying a massive solar-manufacturing push in the U.S., the WSJ’s Phred Dvorak reports, with a planned scale for producing solar panels that would make the company’s factory one of the largest such ventures in the country. The nature of the manufacturing may be more important than the sheer scale. The factory will also manufacture solar cells, the building blocks for solar panels and a component not currently produced in the U.S. The last few manufacturers went out of business or were priced out of the market by cheaper imports in recent years, leaving the U.S. without a bedrock piece of the solar supply chain as the country looks to compete with Chinese imports. Enel, meantime, is looking at potential sites from the Great Lakes to Texas, with hopes of starting production in 2024.

New U.S. unemployment claims fell slightly last week and remained near historically low levels. (WSJ)

Construction on new houses in the U.S. fell 4.2% in October. (MarketWatch)

Russia agreed to renew an arrangement allowing for the export of Ukrainian agricultural products through the war-torn Black Sea region. (WSJ)

Alibaba’s third-quarter sales rose 3%, in one of the weakest revenue expansions since the Chinese e-commerce company went public. (WSJ)

David Yeager is retiring as CEO of Hub Group and his son, Phillip Yeager, will replace him at the top of the rail-focused logistics provider. (WSJ)

Volkswagen’s new CEO put plans for a self-driving vehicle under review in a sign that he is walking back some of the car maker’s most ambitious technology ventures. (WSJ)

General Motors expects to be solidly profitable on electric vehicles sold in North America by 2025. (WSJ)

GM struck an agreement with Brazilian mining company Vale for supplies of nickel for electric-vehicle batteries. (Financial Times)

Foxconn’s big iPhone factory in Zhengzhou, China, needs 100,000 workers to resume full production. (South China Morning Post)

Food-services supplier Sysco plans to have 800 electric heavy-duty trucks in its fleet by 2026. (Fleet Equipment)

MSC Air Cargo plans to launch its first airfreight service with 777-200 freighters in December. (Air Cargo World)

Castor Maritime plans to carve its tanker fleet away from its bulk business into a separate company called Toro. (TradeWinds)

India’s Tata Group plans to merge its four airline holdings under the Air India brand. (Bloomberg)

Private equity-owned chemicals transporter Quantix acquired five operators in the Gulf Coast region. (Commercial Carrier Journal)

Maersk-owned tugboat operator Svitzer called off its planned lockout of crews at Australian ports. (ShippingWatch)

Paul Page is editor of WSJ Logistics Report. Reach him at paul.page@wsj.com.

Follow the WSJ Logistics Report team: @PaulPage, @bylizyoung and @pdberger. Follow the WSJ Logistics Report on Twitter at @WSJLogistics.