Lowe's and BJ's are co-champions of Burt Flickinger's "Flick's Picks" of top retailers, as I shared with Cheryl Casone on MORNINGS with MARIA, joined by Tractor Supply, O'Reilly's Automotive and Old Dominion Freight, because they all follow Hall of Fame coach Richie Moran's principles of great personal and professional work ethics, teamwork, meritocracy & treating others as you would want to be treated while serving a "United Nations" of consumers. Cheryl and Burt also discussed the reasons retailers are giving consumers refunds while also letting them keep their purchases and a report that some shoppers are deferring planned holiday purchases until the new year. However, as David Kostin of Goldman Sachs predicts, the period between Back to School and March will be flat to negative anyway when accounting for inflation. Food, distribution, transportation & warehousing are meanwhile safe harbors for retailers, but among discretionary retailers, consumers will be buying less next year than they were pre-pandemic.