Retail is a village. Despite being in direct competition for the customer’s wallet, as a general rule, retailers communicate more among each other than do manufacturers.
One reason is that the competitive realities of the retail sector mean that, for the most part, there is much less concern among regulatory bodies with communication among retailers as there is, for anti-competitive reasons, among manufacturers.
For another, those same competitive realities drive most retailers to see over the competitive nature of the business to the fact that each retailer is in the marketplace together. My personal experience from working on both sides of the fence is that manufacturers are much more likely to see their conterparts in the same industry as the enemy. The Nike rank and file would no more speak to their counterparts at Adidas or Reebok than would they sit down for tea with the devil. It is entirely possible that behind closed doors Phil Knight and Paul Fireman were quite cordial with one another — the stories that had currency within Nike however generally suggested the opposite. Retailers generally lack the luxury of hating their competitors — they need all their energy to meet the needs of their consumers.
The most important thing to keep in mind if you are a manufacturer is that news travels, and bad news travels fast. If you have short-shipped or have otherwise “jacked” one of your customers, assume all of your customers are going to find out about it.