The packages, which range in price from about $52 to $96, are all about practicality over luxury

Publix has alerted customers that its GreenWise brand was voluntarily recalling the Pear, Kiwi, Spinach & Pea food pouch

• Ryan Frankel and his wife, Evelyn, launched Thrift Vintage Fashion in 2020.
• The business supplies secondhand clothing nationwide.
• Thrift Vintage Fashion saw a 41% revenue increase after tariffs were announced.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Ryan Frankel, a 36-year-old business owner in Miami. It has been edited for length and clarity.

My primary business is Thrift Vintage Fashion, which I launched in 2020 with my wife, Evelyn. We supply secondhand clothing — mostly men's wear, such as T-shirts, sweatshirts, and denim — to stores nationwide. When Trump took office in January, our sales took a steep decline.

Once he came into office, there was a lot of uncertainty. However, we noticed a significant incline once tariffs were announced in February. From February to March, we saw an unprecedented 41% increase in revenue (gross sales). Then we had our best March and April since we started the business.

I can't attribute our growth to anything other than the tariffs.

My family has been in this business for three generations

My grandfather began selling men's secondhand clothing after World War II. In the 90s, my father primarily sold denim and Levi's. When I started working with my father in 2010, we brought the business online and got our name out there.

After I launched Thrift Vintage Fashion, which is primarily a wholesale B2B business, it popped off right away. We did over $1 million in revenue in our first year working out of our garage during peak COVID in 2020. This was mainly due to my experience working with my father over the previous decade and improving the model and ordering efficiency through the TVF website.

Once Trump raised the tariffs, many of our clients reached out to us

Many clients — primarily secondhand clothing stores (big and small), vintage clothing stores, and online resellers — reached out to ask if the tariffs had affected our business. There was a lot of uncertainty, but we were able to confidently say, "No, we're not affected, and we're not going to raise our prices." Since then, we've just seen a slew of new orders come in, in addition to existing clients ordering a lot more.

Consumers preparing for prices to go up is another factor that has increased our secondhand sales. Everyone's talking about how fashion prices are going up, but since secondhand circulates within the US, no tariffs are affecting it at all.

It seems more people are interested in entering the reselling business

People are potentially looking into reselling more, which is positively affecting my wholesale business. We've seen steady growth across the US.

The US has been our primary market for the last three years, and we see increasing interest from new and existing resale clients. Our numbers are growing, our existing customers are doubling down on their business, and there's increasing demand in the secondhand market. I'm biased, as this is my career, but it's an excellent opportunity for shoppers and business owners to consider selling and buying secondhand goods.

There's so much of it out there: eBay, estate sales, garage sales, or storage units. A lot of secondhand merchandise is way better quality than most things produced today, and there's a growing demand for all of it. We're buying more goods and building our supply chain, prepping for growth in both wholesale and retail sectors.

The main challenges are the high costs of collecting, processing, and reselling these garments

Believe it or not, many used clothing articles cost more than many new clothing items made today. So, our company is always up against the perception of selling something used for the same price or more than new clothing. However, this perception is shifting daily, with people recognizing the value of secondhand versus cheap new fashion.

Every day, we're shedding the old stigma of secondhand shops being viewed as "less than." The fact is that the items we sell are in excellent condition. While many brands produce cheap, throwaway fast fashion, older clothes were often made more durably. Whether the clothes were made five or 15 years ago, many desirable styles have become rare by nature and hard to find, thus increasing their value.

The desire for secondhand items will probably continue

If you're already selling secondhand items, that's great; stick with it. You're probably seeing increases already, and I think it will continue. If you're not selling secondhand, especially if you're worried about tariffs, I would consider trying to implement it into your existing business.

There are so many significant factors in buying secondhand that the average American consumer slowly recognizes more each day. There are also opportunities to grow a brand reselling the billions of secondhand garments in circulation. I believe we're past the days of "thrifting" carrying a negative connotation. We're scratching the surface of what's possible with secondhand.

If you're a small-business owner with a unique story that you would like to share, please email the editor, Manseen Logan, at [email protected].

• Walmart will soon offer delivery in three-hours or less to 95% of the US population.
• Its delivery business is also profitable for the first time, executives said on Thursday.
• The retailer has spent billions beefing up its e-commerce operations to take on Amazon.

Walmart's big bet on delivery is finally starting to pay off.

After years of effort and billions of dollars, the retailer is on the verge of being able to deliver to 95% of the US population within three hours, CEO Doug McMillon said during the company's first-quarter earnings call on Thursday.

That's faster than Amazon (though Walmart's selection of products available for such speedy delivery is smaller).

Not only is its delivery reach getting wider, the company handled nearly twice as many three-hour deliveries last quarter as it did a year ago, helping its e-commerce business to post a quarterly profit for the first time.

Overall, Walmart is now handling a lot more packages through its delivery network than it did a few years ago — something that CFO John David Rainey called "densification."

"Think about the opportunity to deliver a package to five houses on the street versus one house on the street," Rainey said. "As we grow, we continue to spread those costs over more volume."

Many Walmart customers are also willing to pay to get their purchases delivered within a few hours, Rainey added. Walmart already offers fast delivery on groceries, for instance, through its Walmart+ paid subscription program. Other shoppers can pay a fee between $7.95 and $9.95 for at least $35 worth of groceries.

Retail tends to be a low-margin business. Turning a profit on delivery can be even more challenging.

But Walmart is starting with something that few competitors have: a sprawling fleet of more than 4,600 stores that are stocked with tens of thousands of items.

From there, Walmart has made further investments over the past several years, including specialized fulfillment centers, remodeled retail stores, and an increasingly automated supply chain to keep inventory flowing.

The company has also built — and redesigned — a suite of apps for customers, workers, and Spark delivery drivers to make ordering and fulfilling more convenient.

More recently, the company has been selling warehousing and delivery muscle to other businesses, as well as a growing (and highly profitable) advertising sales business.

Those revenue streams help Walmart keep delivery speeds fast and costs low while earning money for the company.

All of it adds up to an ever more efficient delivery operation that the company says was able to deliver last-minute bouquets of fresh flowers to customers on Easter and Mother's Day — and presumably some chocolates too.

"It shows the relevance of convenience," Rainey said.

Do you work for Walmart Spark or another gig delivery service and have a story idea to share? Reach out to this reporter at [email protected].

• Egg sandwiches are sold in Japan's many convenience stores.
• Anthony Bourdain said he particularly loved the version from Lawson, a convenience store.
• For $2, the chain makes the perfect grab-and-go option for breakfast or lunch.

If the idea of a convenience store sandwich conjures up visions of stale bread and a mysterious filling that may not pass the sniff test, think again. Anthony Bourdain called egg sandwiches found at Japan's convenience stores "pillows of love."

On a recent trip to Japan, I too fell in love with egg salad sandwiches and wanted to try a grab-and-go version from one of the country's ubiquitous convenience stores. The sandwiches are quick, tasty, and the perfect thing to eat when you're in a hurry.

In the Okinawa episode of "Parts Unknown," which aired in 2015, Bourdain described this snack as having an unholy grip on him. Bourdain swore by Lawson's version in particular.

Lawson, a chain of convenience stores, sells packaged egg sandwiches, or tamago sandos, for around $2.

Before heading to the airport on my last day in Japan, I stopped in for one. For the price and speed, it was hard to top.

Months before she was supposed to celebrate her 60th wedding anniversary, Peggy Bryant died of an allergic reaction, her daughter said

Ettore 'Hector' Boiardi's legacy is an everyday brand that elicits the warmest feelings in generations of American families

The popular grocer credits the contaminated products being pulled due to mispackaging

What are the odds?

This article is part of "Made to Order," a series highlighting the business strategies driving today's food industry.

Dash In in Chantilly, Virginia, doesn't look like a store at a gas station.

As I walk in, I woman named Esme flashes a smile and greets me. Straight ahead is a kitchen where I can order a burger developed by the Washington, DC, chef Spike Mendelsohn or watch as mini doughnuts roll out of a fryer on a conveyer belt. To the right is a wall with bar-style taps that dispense soft drinks such as Pepsi and a cucumber-flavored soda. Before long, I'm ordering several food items from a touchscreen.

None of this was here just a couple of years ago, says Mark Samuels, the executive vice president of convenience retailing at the Wills Group, which owns Dash In. The company designed the 5,600-square-foot store and built it from the ground up. It also developed the food and beverage offerings, like the Spike burger.

"We're a very food-forward concept," Samuels tells me on the floor of the chain's Chantilly location.

Convenience stores have been upping their food game for a while. But Dash In's transformation shows how many are making food — freshly prepared food, specifically — a draw for patrons.

For convenience stores, food draws in customers

Gas stations with attached convenience stores proliferated in the middle of the last century as more Americans bought cars, moved to suburbs, and hopped on the interstates. They were easy places to buy fuel and, perhaps, a pack of cigarettes when you walked inside the store to pay for your gas.

Starting in the 1980s, though, many gas stations started installing credit card readers at pumps, reducing the number of people who had to stop by the attached store to pay.

At the same time, the number of smokers in the US was falling. That took away a key source of profit for convenience stores, Samuels says. "You had to find other ways to drive sales and profitability," he tells me.

One solution has been to offer more food.

Many chains have been adding prepared foods for years. East Coast diners are likely to have a preference between Sheetz and Wawa, both of which offer food such as doughnuts and paninis. Southerners, especially Texans, are likely to preach the virtues of Buc-ee's, a chain as known for Beaver Nuggets and brisket as it is for its supermarket-sized stores.

"These chains have recognized that they can become a food service and restaurant destination more so than they had been in the past, and it's opening up a new revenue stream for them," Billy Roberts, a CoBank senior analyst for food and beverage, told me over the phone.

Offering better food usually leads customers to spend more time in convenience stores, said Elizabeth Lafontaine, the director of research at Placer.ai, which tracks foot traffic at retailers.

"Convenience stores are a highly impulsive environment," Lafontaine said in a phone interview. "If somebody's going in, they're likely to pick up something else while they're there."

One metric that Placer.ai measures is "dwell time" — how long people spend at a store.

At Buc-ee's, customers spent just over 21 minutes per visit on average when they stopped by one of the chain's stores in 2024, a Placer.ai data analysis found. Wawa was far behind at about 12 minutes, as was Sheetz at 11, though both were still ahead of Circle K, which averaged about nine minutes.

"All of the ones that have longer dwell times — and also all the ones that are doing the best right now — are the ones that have really focused on the prepared food offerings," Lafontaine said.

Sheetz and Wawa, both of which have built up their store networks in the mid-Atlantic, compete with Dash In, Samuels tells me. "Where can we differentiate?" he says.

Convenience stores and fast-food collide

As Samuels and I sit at one of the tables in the Chantilly Dash In's dining area, Esme brings the food I ordered to our table.

I try the Spike burger, which tastes rich because of the over-easy egg and pleasantly zesty thanks to the spicy Dash sauce. There's also the Stackadilla, a multilayered quesadilla. I ordered it with shaved steak. And the sweet potato waffle fries, while not necessarily a Dash In original, are crispier than any I've had elsewhere — quite a feat given how much harder sweet potatoes are to crisp up than their white counterparts.

Between the burger, fries, and souped-up quesadilla, it's hard not to think Dash In and other convenience stores are taking on fast-food chains.

According to Samuels, I'm not wrong. These days, fast-food restaurants and convenience stores "are really melding together," he tells me, adding: "People are actually thinking of convenience stores now as a place to go eat, which didn't happen 20 years ago."

That comes at a tough time for many fast-food chains, which are trying to keep diners after years of inflation and persistently high prices. One of the highest-profile examples was McDonald's $5 meal deal, which the company said got more people ordering despite some pushback from franchisees who said the meal cost them too much to serve.

Many diners, especially Gen Zers, don't view traditional fast-food chains as a good value, a survey from Morning Consult last year found.

The food operations at Dash In feel similar to fast-food restaurants, though Samuels points out some differences. The grill and other work areas in the kitchen, for instance, are more open and visible than at many fast-food joints, he says. And while some fast-food chains stick food in warmers until someone orders it, everything here is made to order, he adds.

By doing that, convenience stores are "creating this experience where their food feels fresh because it's being prepared in front of you," Placer.ai's Lafontaine said.

"People will look at the quality, they will see what we're delivering, and we're going to get them back again and again," Samuels says.

• Primark has a big presence in Europe, but it's now opening clothing stores in the US.
• The chain sells affordable items, putting it in competition with Old Navy and T.J. Maxx.
• I visited a Primark store in Virginia to see what it's like.

You've probably heard of T.J. Maxx or Forever 21 as places to buy cheap clothes.

But for US shoppers, Primark might not be a familiar name — yet.

The Ireland-based retailer has 460 stores globally, most in the UK and Europe. The company sells "affordable choices for everyone," according to its website. Owned by Associated British Foods, it has become as familiar a name in the UK for inexpensive clothing as Old Navy in the US.

It has also spent the past decade operating stores in the US, especially in the southern states, since opening its first American location in Boston.

Primark said that it had 29 stores in the US at the end of 2024 and plans to open more this year. Among them is an anticipated flagship store in Manhattan's Herald Square — not far from department store Macy's longtime home.

I wanted to see what shopping at Primark is like and whether it differentiates itself enough from other US stores that sell affordable clothing.

The concept makes sense — many shoppers have spent the last few years trying to save money and mitigate the effects of inflation on their budgets. However, several established retailers here in the US already cater to people trying to fill out their wardrobes at reasonable prices.

I went to a store in Virginia that Primark opened last year. Here's what I found:

Americans angry about Elon Musk's unprecedented cuts to government services are voicing their displeasure at Tesla showrooms, and Musk isn't happy about it. "Who is funding and organizing all these paid protests?" he recently groused on X, referring to the ongoing wave of Tesla Takedown demonstrations taking place across the country.

But the better question for Musk might be: "Who built my showrooms in a way that made them such ideal targets for demonstrations?" Because the answer is: Elon Musk.

Car dealerships tend to be relegated to the outskirts of big cities, but most of Tesla's 276 showrooms in the United States are located smack in the middle of bustling neighborhoods full of wealthy progressives. That puts them right next to popular stores and busy restaurants, increasing the brand's visibility and foot traffic. It's ideal if you want to sell a status-symbol electric car — but maybe not so ideal when people are up in arms about your full-tilt, questionably legal operation to gut federal services to millions of Americans.

Musk put his showrooms in tony blue neighborhoods for two good reasons. First, he needed a way to get around state laws that bar carmakers from selling directly to consumers. So Musk turned Tesla's lack of in-person sales into a selling point. The cars at a Tesla "gallery" aren't there for you to buy. Oh my, no! The grubby exchange of money happens online. That means that unlike other car dealerships, Musk doesn't need to park a fleet of unsold Hyundais along some six-lane highway on the far fringes of town. "Our stores," Musk boasted in 2012, "are designed to be informative and interactive in a delightful way and are simply unlike the traditional dealership with several hundred cars in inventory that a commissioned salesperson is tasked with selling."

Second, Teslas are designed for affluent, progressive, early adopters, not the F-150 crowd. So it makes sense to locate the showrooms where the customers are. "We are deliberately positioning our store and gallery locations in high foot traffic, high visibility retail venues, like malls and shopping streets that people regularly visit in a relatively open-minded buying mood," Musk wrote.

I asked the American Communities Project, which maintains a county-by-county map of the United States that breaks out demographic characteristics, to sync its data with the locations of all 276 Tesla showrooms. Sure enough, more than half are in what the ACP calls "big cities" or "urban suburbs." Likewise, overlaying Tesla showroom locations onto neighborhood data (courtesy of the National Zoning Atlas) shows that they're predominantly in census tracts designated as "inner suburbs." Those tracts are fewer than a third of all neighborhoods, but they're home to more than half of Tesla's showrooms.

In short, Tesla put itself in places where people are better educated, higher-income — and more likely to vote Democratic. Which means that Tesla's clever showrooms have made the company vulnerable to protests by the very people the showrooms were built to attract.

"Just when they basically won, it seems like they're finding a way to lose now," says Dan Crane, a law professor at the University of Michigan who is the author of the forthcoming book "Direct Hit: How Tesla Went Straight to Consumers and Smashed the Car Dealers' Monopoly." Sales are down, Cybertrucks are being set on fire, and Tesla's stock price has plummeted by more than 30% this year. "Their retail strategy made them sitting ducks," Crane says.

---

People have protested car dealerships before. In the early 2000s, ecological activists actually blew up Hummers at dealerships on the West Coast. But Tesla showrooms are qualitatively different from those of its rivals. "They are actually in places where people congregate," says Dana Fisher, a sociologist at American University who is the author of "American Resistance."

Tesla built its stores to attract progressive urbanites — exactly the people who are now protesting Musk and Tesla

That's important for protest strategy, because it means Tesla showrooms are located near public spaces like sidewalks, where it's legal to stage a demonstration. Nobody has to trespass on a car lot. And a Tesla store in an outdoor mall or a bustling shopping street puts protesters right in the faces of potential Tesla buyers. "The goal here is shaming consumers about their purchasing decisions," Fisher says. "To protest a brand, it's great to be able to go to a dealership."

It wouldn't make sense to protest at one of Donald Trump's hotels or golf courses — they're heavily guarded, they're too far away from everything, and the wealthy people patronizing them have already picked a side. But if you want to put pressure on Elon Musk's stock portfolio, the addresses of 276 possible protest locations are right there on the Tesla website. "Tesla facilities are basically the most common, well-known, and visible symbols of Elon Musk, and Elon Musk is the most well-known, visible symbol of the cruelty, inhumanity, and incompetence of this administration," says Patrice Kopistansky, a retired government lawyer who has helped organize Tesla protests in Virginia.

The locations help, Kopistansky tells me. The Tesla showroom in Tysons Corner is surrounded by other high-end car dealerships, but those operations are set way back from the sidewalk, amid lots full of unsold cars. Tesla's building is close to the street, which makes it easy to picket. "I don't know why they built it like that," Kopistansky says. "They've probably come to regret it."

And as a bonus? When Tesla drivers stop at the traffic light nearby, protesters can offer them bumper stickers printed for the occasion: "Sorry I bought a Tesla!"

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Adam Rogers is a senior correspondent at Business Insider.

In early April, the grocery store dropped the mini bags in pastel shades of pink, blue, green and purple

• Marketing experts say Elon Musk has alienated the eco-conscious customer base who would buy Teslas.
• Musk, as Tesla's face, has made its vehicles a "negative luxury," a brand expert told BI.
• Tesla could rebrand by removing Musk, changing its name, and scrapping its Cybertrucks.

As Tesla sees cratering sales and faltering investor confidence, marketing experts say CEO Elon Musk has repelled the precise political demographic mostly likely to buy his vehicles — and that the path to recovery may not be easy.

Aside from Musk selling his 13% stake in Tesla or ceasing his political activities, brand experts told Business Insider that it may be a good idea for Tesla to change its name and logo to leave its past behind — a practice common to airlines after major disasters.

"Tesla is more politically skewed than any other brand, and it is clearly skewed liberal," David J. Reibstein, Professor of Marketing at The Wharton School, told Business Insider, "and they have successfully alienated themselves from their customer base."

Musk has drawn public ire over his involvement with the White House DOGE office, which rapidly laid off tens of thousands of federal workers, endangered programs like Social Security, and imperiled conservation causes. The Environmental Protection Agency alone canceled more than 400 grants under DOGE.

"A lot of the people who were buying Teslas are those concerned about climate change. A lot of the Republicans don't believe in climate change, and so trying to get some of the Republicans to replace the Democrats as the customers is a big step forward," Reibstein added.

Not only are Tesla showrooms worldwide regularly surrounded by protesters from the Tesla Takedown movement, but the company also reported a 13% drop in quarterly sales in the US between January and March compared to the same period in 2024. This marks Tesla's weakest performance since early 2022.

In Europe, Tesla lost more than 40% of its sales in January and February compared to the same two months last year.

Tesla blamed the slowdown on production line reconfigurations ahead of an anticipated Model Y refresh. Still, its stock price also suggests investors are concerned about Musk's commitment to the company, given his focus on DOGE.

As of the market closing on April 4, Tesla stocks had already lost about 36% of their value since the beginning of 2025. Vice President JD Vance said on Thursday that Musk's work in the White House "is not even close to done" and that he will remain a "friend and adviser" to the administration.

The danger of a one-face brand

While there have been individual acts of vandalism against Tesla showrooms and cars, many Tesla Takedown organizers advocate for peaceful protests and focus the heat on Musk. To them, a boycott against Tesla cars is more of a tool to create pressure and financial damage for Musk than spray-painting Cybertrucks.

Dan Ives, a Wedbush Securities analyst who has consistently been bullish about Tesla's long-term prospects, wrote in a joint note in March that the EV maker is "going through a crisis" and facing a "defining chapter."

He added that he thinks Musk is the "one person who can fix it" and that the outcome depends on Musk.

Branding experts have said that having a single individual represent a brand, like Musk represents Tesla, is at best a risk and at worst a liability.

"100% of the communication of Tesla today in Europe is created by the buzz around Musk," Jean-Noel Kapferer, an Emeritus professor of marketing at HEC Paris, told BI. Kapferer said Musk is making Tesla cars a "negative luxury" and leading some to call the company "Tesmusk."

"A brand is built by customers, not companies," said Marty Neumeier, author and Director of CEO Branding for Liquid Agency. "So when Musk appeared to change from a 'progressive genius' to an 'arrogant tyrant,' putting himself above the car and its customers, he changed the meaning of the brand."

Taking a page from airline companies

Marketing experts say it's not too late for Tesla to rebrand and bounce back, but most routes toward recovery may require significant concessions from Musk.

Lars Perner, an assistant professor of Clinical Marketing at the University of Southern California, told BI that the most obvious solution would be for Musk to sell his shares and allow someone less conspicuous to take over as CEO. This move could make Tesla "worth considerably more" without Musk's "alienation of the core market."

Reibstein, the Wharton professor, said another solution would be for Tesla to change its name and logo — essentially taking a page from the playbook of airline companies that have experienced major accidents.

For example, after a 1996 ValuJet Airlines crash in Florida killed all 110 passengers on board, the company acquired AirTran Airways and simply took the new acquisition's name.

Corporate Airlines became RegionsAir when a flight crashed in Missouri and resulted in 13 fatalities in October 2004.

In 2014, Malaysia Airlines considered renaming itself after it lost two planes — flight MH370, which disappeared over the Indian Ocean, and flight MH17, which was shot down over eastern Ukraine by pro-Russia separatists.

Ryanair, one of the world's largest airlines, renamed its Boeing 737 Max jets "737-8200" in 2019 after 2 fatal crashes spooked customers.

Reibstein said that one of the few examples he could think of when a brand so closely tied to a tarnished name bounced back without really distancing itself from its past was when Martha Stewart — eponymous to her home decor and culinary products empire — was convicted of lying to federal investigators.

"Everybody anticipated that was going to be the brand's demise when she went to jail," said Reibstein. "But when she came back, somehow she's been able to rehabilitate the brand."

Aside from solutions that mainly hinge on Musk, Neumeier said that the Cybertruck, the stainless steel-clad vehicle that has already faced multiple recalls, also needs to go.

"To most customers, it looks like it came from another planet, and not a nice one," said Neumeier of Cybertrucks, "It's now the de facto symbol of 'American fascism,' as some are calling Musk's vision for the future."

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney, whose company makes Fortnite and tools for other developers, including Unreal Engine, called out Apple and Google as “gangster-style businesses” engaged in illegal practices while speaking at a Y Combinator event on Wednesday. The executive also emphasized how the big tech companies’ practices directly affected his own business by scaring […]

• Some Macy's executives have to pay back bonuses as a result of an accounting scandal.
• Macy's overstated one of its earnings metrics in 2023, leading to the inflated bonuses.
• The executives owe Macy's over $600,000 as a result, the retailer said.

Macy's executives will have to pay back hundreds of thousands of dollars in bonus payments as a result of an accounting scandal, the department store firm said on Tuesday.

The retailer overstated one of its earnings measures by $81 million in 2023, the company said in a filing with the SEC. That metric influenced how much Macy's executives were paid in bonuses the following year.

As a result, some execs will have to pay back a cumulative $609,613 in cash bonuses that the company awarded them through the end of 2024, according to the filing.

The company has already reclaimed some of the bonus payments and had to collect the remaining $352,093 as of April 1, the filing said. Macy's "will seek to recover the remaining amount of the erroneously awarded compensation" from the executives during the company's 2025 fiscal year, the company said in the SEC filing.

A Macy's spokesperson declined to comment in response to questions from Business Insider, including which executives had to pay back bonuses.

Last fall, Macy's delayed its third-quarter earnings report after it said that an employee hid more than $150 million in expenses. The company said at the time that one employee who oversaw expenses for small package delivery was responsible for the incorrect figures.

Accounting experts told BI then that the problem likely wasn't just bad accounting but the failure of multiple internal controls at Macy's.

In December, Macy's corrected some of its past financial figures, according to a filing. The department store chain said that its net income for 2023 was 57% lower than it initially reported, for example.

• The collapse of Party City is giving dollar store chains a welcome lift.
• Even with concerns about tariffs and inflation, retail earnings have shown shoppers continue to spend on celebrations.
• Dollar Tree, Five Below, and Dollar General each reported good sales of party supplies.

Call it retail's circle of life.

As in nature, the demise of one creature can unlock resources that benefit others in the ecosystem.

Most recently, the collapse of Party City has been giving dollar store chains a welcome lift, especially as the economy heads into a period of uncertainty.

"There's been a lot of competitors closing, many not in our space directly, but some that were like, for instance, with Party City moving out," Dollar General CEO Ted Vasos said on an earnings call earlier this month.

"We went in and rebalanced the inventory in our p0pshelf stores, bringing in more party, more occasions, more toys, things that will go directly for that consumer that is probably left looking for a place to shop," he added.

Five Below CEO Winnie Park also said this month that her chain was dedicated to "help our customers play, live, give, and celebrate."

"We also help our customers celebrate milestones like graduations and micro and macro holidays from Valentine's to New Year's Eve and everything in between," she said.

Dollar Tree interim CEO Michael Creedon echoed the idea on an earnings call Wednesday.

"The holidays are what drives Dollar Tree. I don't care what your income is, there's no better place to celebrate the holidays, or celebrate in general than Dollar Tree," he said. "No one should go anywhere else because we offer the best value, we've got the convenience."

Earnings from other companies such as Target and Walmart in recent quarters have shown that even with concerns about inflation, shoppers continue to spend to celebrate special occasions.

With tariff uncertainty in the mix, parents may start deal-hunting for lower prices for their kid's birthday party.

• Dollar Tree says it has reached a deal to sell its long-struggling Family Dollar chain.
• The $1 billion sale comes a decade after the company bought the former rival.
• For most of that time, Dollar Tree was unable to find a way to make the brand perform well.

It's a new day for Dollar Tree.

The discount chain said Wednesday that it has reached a deal to sell its long-struggling Family Dollar chain to a private equity company in a deal worth $1 billion.

The sale comes a decade after the company bought the smaller chain for $8 billion in 2015, beating out Dollar General for the deal, but ultimately losing ground against its now-larger rival.

"Basically, Dollar Tree bit off far more than it could chew," Global Data retail analyst Neil Saunders said in a note.

Saunders said that Dollar Tree's efforts to turn the brand around were hampered by supply chain issues, challenging store locations, and a pricing strategy that wasn't as sharp as other brands.

Removing the weight of Family Dollar has already lifted Dollar Tree's financials, which the company reported Wednesday.

"With the pending sale of Family Dollar, I am excited at the opportunity to return to Dollar Tree's roots and begin to unlock the full potential of this iconic retail brand," interim CEO Michael Creedon said during an earnings call.

Dollar Tree said last year that it planned to close about 1,000 Family Dollar locations, but the company did not specify whether any additional closures would be made following this deal.

Shares of Dollar Tree were trading up over 3% on Wednesday morning.

• A Chinese-language Bible donated to a UK charity thrift store sold for $72,902 at auction.
• The Bible, dated between 1815 and 1822, was initially valued at $777-$1,036.
• Oxfam workers said they were shocked at how much the rare book sold for.

When a team of volunteers at a charity thrift store specializing in secondhand books discovered a Chinese-language Bible among a pile of donations, they suspected it might be worth some money.

However, they were in disbelief when it eventually sold at auction for £56,280, the equivalent of $72,902. The money will go to the charity.

Nick Reeves, the manager of the Oxfam charity bookstore in Chelmsford, England, said in a press statement that two of their volunteers found the book while rummaging through a pile of donations and "suspected it could be worth something."

It was taken to an auction house in London, where specialists initially valued it at between $777 and $1,036.

But when the bidding started, the price kept climbing, attracting a final price far exceeding the initial valuation — almost $72,000 above the upper estimate.

"When it finally ended, I was in complete shock," Reeves said. "We were absolutely speechless."

It turned out that the book was the first known complete printed Bible translated into Chinese, the auction house, Bonhams, said in its listing.

Ian Falkingham, Oxfam's Donated Goods Strategy Lead, told Business Insider that "we could never have expected it."

Falkingham told BI that every donation is meaningful to Oxfam, but it is "extra special" when something of this value comes along.

The Bible, the first-known translation into Chinese, was jointly translated by John Lassar, a Macao-born Armenian scholar of Chinese, and Joshua Marshman, a Baptist missionary in India who studied the language under him.

The book is dated from between 1815 and 1822.

"The Lassar and Marshman Chinese translation of the Bible was an exceedingly rare item, which we could not trace at auction previously," said Lorenza Gay, an associate specialist in books and manuscripts at Bonhams.

The Bible was sold last Thursday after two weeks of intense bidding, and was among two dozen books auctioned at Bonhams that week that had been donated to various Oxfam stores.

In total, the books raised over $135,000 for the charity, and included the sale of a first edition of Charles Dicken's "A Christmas Carol" for $21,542 and a signed copy of Roald Dahl's "Matilda" from 1989, which sold for the equivalent of $2,983.

Falkingham said of Oxfam: "We are the largest chain of secondhand bookshops in Europe, and you really never know what books might be donated, who they might be written by, or how much they will be worth."

• Printemps, a luxury French retailer, opened a new location in New York City.
• The launch marks the store's return to the American market.
• Turning the store into a success will take "hard work," a GlobalData Retail analyst says.

A walkthrough at Printemps New York, a new retail venue in Manhattan's Financial District, is different every time you visit — and that's the point.

Ambient noise and mood lighting that changes throughout the day are designed to transport you to a playful Parisian apartment that will feel different at 10 a.m. than it does at 7 p.m. Though the space was originally designed to be part of a bank's headquarters, Printemps intends to make it a destination for foodies, fashion moguls, and local residents alike.

Printemps, a luxury French retailer, had the grand opening of its new location at One Wall Street in New York City on Friday. The Big Apple venture marks a diversion from the company's traditional brick-and-mortar concept to a more experience-focused retail model.

Jean-Marc Bellaiche, the CEO of Printemps, told Business Insider that the project started with the idea that "New York doesn't need another department store." After the closing of Barneys and Jeffrey in 2020, Bellaiche said Printemps saw an opportunity to fill the luxury retail gap and increase its brand awareness among American consumers.

But, he added, the company knew it still needed to offer something different from fellow retailers to attract shoppers in such a competitive market.

The closures of some US retail giants in recent years could suggest that consumers are tightening their purse strings. But Neil Saunders, a retail analyst at GlobalData Retail, said Printemps' new store has the potential to "shake things up" in New York and be a "launchpad" for the brand. He said finding a niche in the city's crowded retail ecosystem and attracting loyal customers to the Financial District will be key.

Betting on the Big Apple

After the pandemic, some department store companies worried that luxury shoppers wouldn't return to brick-and-mortar stores. But a 2024 report from EMARKETER found that 45% of US adult luxury shoppers reported buying luxury goods in person at a department store in the past 12 months, up from 32% in 2022.

Despite a post-pandemic recovery, luxury department stores in the US are still struggling, and consumers are spending less on luxury brands, eating into their profits. "It's going to be very, very hard work to make this succeed," Saunders said. "That doesn't mean they can't, but I think that they're definitely running up a down escalator on this one."

Printemps, which already operates 20 stores across France and one in Doha, Qatar, sees this as an opportunity to do something different. The new venture is a return to the American market for the 160-year-old company; in 1987, Printemps opened its first US department store in Denver, filling a luxury retail niche in the city at the time. But business was slow, and the store closed two years later.

And in New York, Printemps faces more competition. While Bellaiche said there is an appetite for luxury retail in the US and New York, the crowded market is pushing the company to be more experimental.

"I don't think any department store will close because of us, let's be humble," Bellaiche said. "But, is there a way to bring something different, to make the noise, and little by little build a very strong business? We believe so."

An immersive shopping experience

Printemps New York is 55,000 square feet, spanning two floors at the base of a 50-story condominium, but it's a fraction of the size of its Paris flagship. Given its smaller size, the store had to be more specialized, leading the team to move away from shop-in-shops and opt for curated, multi-brand rooms instead, which include womenswear, menswear, beauty, and jewelry.

The French retail chain said it wanted to approach the venture as a "hospitality project" rather than a typical retail store; instead of focusing on making sales, it wants to win customers' time.

As it does in Paris, the space features multiple food and beverage concepts, including a café, raw bar, cocktail bar, Champagne bar, and fine-dining restaurant led by Gregory Gourdet, a three-time James Beard award winner.

The store also features seven shopping areas, each with a unique design to complement the products on display, such as a haute couture Jean Paul Gautier dress, Nike sneakers, and La Rosée cosmetics, a French pharmacy favorite.

One area is the historic red-and-gold mosaic lobby known as the Red Room. Previously the reception room of Irving Trust and Bank Company, it was designated as an interior landmark in 2024. After much conversation over how best to use the Art Deco space, Printemps turned the room into what it's calling a "shoe forest," with tall footwear displays and gold lamps shaped like flowers.

While each room is distinct, Printemps channels maximalism throughout the space with bright colors, whimsical designs, and intricate art that hints at the company's French roots. Instead of having a designated walkway for customers to follow, Printemps encourages customers to wander through the space.

Printemps is also experimenting with programming and events with customers and brands, including talks, takeovers, and pop-ups, which the company hopes will help it engage with local clientele.

Innovating past opening day

While the company told BI it has no plans to replicate the retail concept or strategy, it said it's already using its New York site as a "proof of concept," or testing ground, for its Paris flagship location.

"There's a little bit of that lab spirit for sure," Bellaiche said.

Because Printemps built its New York location from the ground up, it had the opportunity to try new technologies, such as a wayfinding system for customers to explore the store on their phones, and heat map technology to track busy areas and merchandising. Printemps decided to incorporate new brands in its catalog as well. The company said it's considering some of these changes for its flagship store in Paris.

As Printemps continues to look beyond Paris, Bellaiche told BI that the company plans to introduce an e-commerce site in the fall that sells its New York products and ships directly to the US.

"This store will continue the storytelling every month. We need to come with new stories, new exclusive brands, new purpose," Bellaiche said. "It's going to be a living entity."