American consumers are rerouting their spending rather than pulling back. With University of Michigan sentiment at 48.2, the savings rate down to 3.6% from 5.1% in early 2025, and energy prices up 14.4% year-over-year, households are making rational adjustments: buying private label at Costco, hunting TJX racks for branded apparel, fixing the old Hyundai instead of financing a new one, and listing the kids’ outgrown clothes on eBay. Consumers who are highly deliberate about what they buy (the selective shopper) and those who care about sustainability (the circular economy) share the same core behaviors and are responding sensibly to a higher-cost world.
That shift is structural. Six ETFs sit closest to the money flow:
- SPDR S&P Retail ETF (NYSEARCA: XRT)
- ProShares Online Retail ETF (NYSEARCA: ONLN)
- Invesco S&P SmallCap Consumer Discretionary ETF (NASDAQ: PSCD)
- Global X E-commerce ETF (NASDAQ: EBIZ)
- Consumer Staples Select Sector SPDR Fund (NYSEARCA: XLP | XLP Price Prediction)
- VanEck Retail ETF (NASDAQ: RTH).
They split cleanly into two camps: the resale and off-price plays (XRT, ONLN, EBIZ, PSCD) and the trade-down beneficiaries (XLP, RTH).
The Macro Setup Behind the Behavior Shift
Wages are rising. Average hourly earnings reached $37.41 in April 2026, up from $36.12 a year earlier. But the consumer price index climbed from 320.8 to 333.0 over the same span, with goods inflation running 3.8% and core personal consumption expenditures at 3.2%. Real purchasing power is eroding faster than nominal pay can patch it. The behavioral response is visible in retail sales hitting a record $757.1 billion in April 2026: the spending is happening, just not where it used to.
XRT: The Cleanest Selective-Shopper Trade
XRT is the rare retail fund built around equal weighting as a deliberate design choice. Off-price names like TJX, Ross, Burlington, and Ollie’s sit alongside resale platforms eBay at roughly the same portfolio weight as Amazon would carry in a cap-weighted peer. That structure gives the fund outsized exposure to exactly the names benefiting from trade-down and secondhand migration.
The catch shows up in performance: XRT is down over 8% year to date to near $17 a share, with broader specialty retail weighing on the basket even as the off-price subset gains share. Investors who want pure exposure to the selective shopper without mega-cap dilution accept that volatility. It is the best vehicle in the lineup for the resale and off-price thesis specifically, but it will not move like staples on bad sentiment days.
ONLN: The Digital Resale Channel
ONLN concentrates in online retailers with meaningful weight in eBay, Etsy, and Amazon, plus international marketplace operator MercadoLibre. The thesis is that secondhand commerce is migrating to digital faster than it is leaving brick-and-mortar thrift, and the platforms taking listing fees and transaction cuts win regardless of which seller moves the sweater.
The fund is concentrated. A handful of names drive most of the return, which means a soft Amazon quarter can swing the whole portfolio. Shares are about $55 apiece, down 7.0% year to date but up 14.9% over the trailing year. The tradeoff is single-stock risk dressed up as a thematic basket.
PSCD: The Overlooked Small-Cap Angle
PSCD is the contrarian pick on this list. It holds smaller specialty retailers, auto parts and repair names, and value-oriented discretionary businesses that screens dominated by Amazon and Tesla will never surface. The repair economy lives here: when motor vehicle PCE drops year-over-year, from $808.4 billion to $780.9 billion, the parts and service aftermarket gets the wallet share.
Small caps have been punished. PSCD is down 5.0% year to date and trades near $100, well below its prior highs. That is exactly why it belongs on this list. It is the long tail of the trend at a depressed entry, with operating leverage to a consumer who keeps repairing instead of replacing.
EBIZ: Global E-commerce and Marketplaces
EBIZ extends the marketplace thesis internationally, with weight in MercadoLibre, Shopify, and other global platforms where resale and C2C commerce are growing faster than U.S. peers. The structural argument is that emerging-market consumers adopted secondhand commerce digitally without ever building the suburban thrift-store infrastructure that defined the U.S. resale economy.
The price has not cooperated. At over $27 a share, EBIZ is down 16.2% year to date and 10.3% over the trailing year, the worst performer in this lineup. For an investor who already owns ONLN, EBIZ is duplicative. For one who wants international marketplace exposure without buying MercadoLibre directly, it is the most efficient option available.
XLP: The Trade-Down Anchor on Staples
XLP is the standout performer in this group and the clearest beneficiary on the staples side. It is up 10.1% year to date to almost $86, with Walmart at 12.1% and Costco at 9.5% of the portfolio. Those two names alone capture the bulk of the trade-down in groceries and household goods, and Target adds another 3.8%.
The fund carries an eight-basis-point expense ratio and a 2.6% dividend yield, making it one of the cheapest ways to own this exposure. The tradeoff is that XLP is also heavy in tobacco (Philip Morris, Altria) and beverages (Coca-Cola, PepsiCo), which dilute the pure discount-retail thesis. Investors who want trade-down exposure with defensive income should start here. Those who want concentrated discount retail need RTH.
RTH: Mega-Cap Winners Take the Share
RTH is cap-weighted and top-heavy in Amazon, Walmart, Home Depot, Costco, and Lowe’s. That structure is a feature for this theme. When consumers tighten, the giants gain share, and the home-improvement names capture the repair-rather-than-renovate household that is fixing the existing roof instead of trading up.
At about $263, RTH is up 4.7% year to date and 10.4% over the trailing year, the second-best performer behind XLP. The tradeoff is concentration: a bad Amazon quarter moves the fund meaningfully. For investors who believe the trade-down winners are already obvious and want to own them in size, this is the most direct vehicle.
How to Choose
The decision turns on which side of the consumer behavior shift you want to own. XLP and RTH are the defensive trade-down plays, already showing positive returns and built around the dominant winners. They suit investors who want the thesis with lower volatility and a clear income or mega-cap profile. XRT, ONLN, EBIZ, and PSCD are the offensive resale and off-price plays, currently in drawdown but holding the names with the most operating leverage if circular-economy adoption accelerates. XRT is the cleanest single fund for that side. PSCD is the most overlooked. Pairing one from each camp captures the full behavior shift without doubling up on Amazon and Walmart through three different tickers.
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