As of 2024, Macy’s wanted to monetize its store closures through real estate deals

Macy’s announced a series of pandemic-era store closures in January 2021

Specifically, as mall foot traffic declined, Macy’s sought to grow elsewhere (as did many other retailers around the same time).

In 2006, Macy's was worth $20B—but as of 2024, its market cap was just under $5B

Macy's went from roughly 800 to 500 stores within the same time period. Macy’s has spent the recent years since the pandemic closing swaths of stores.

Macy’s doesn’t own its flagship location because of the 'million dollar corner'

When Macy’s moved to the Herald Square location, it reached a verbal agreement to acquire that corner of land—but at the last minute, it was sold to a rival store for roughly $1M.

Macy’s revolutionized retail with fixed pricing, pay-upfront policies, and marketing

The brand soon grew into a cultural icon, hosting the first in-store Santa in 1862, and launching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in 1924, now a holiday staple. Its flagship Herald Square store became the world’s largest, and its festive window displays set a new standard for holiday celebrations.

One odd Macy’s location is basically a museum

Here’s a list of things you wouldn’t expect to see at your average Macy’s store: a 19th-century French painting, a former midcentury children’s barbershop, nautical portholes, and the list goes on. Shoppers can find all those things and more in one unique Macy’s store in Pasadena, California.

Dry goods stores sold products such as textiles and linens

RH Macy started Macy’s as a dry goods store in 1858. At the time, the store was located on New York City’s 14th Street. Dry goods stores later rebranded themselves for the future of retail around the 1930s.

North American department store retail groups report sales declined from 2018 to 2023

That's according to a recent report from Bain & Company that dives into consumer sentiment around department store shopping and explores a potential reset for the industry.

Inside one of the last Sears stores in the US

Sears was once one of the most successful businesses in the US. Today, there aren’t many Sears stores left in the nation, and the ones that are still around feel more like ghost towns than meccas of retail history.

Claire's has filed for bankruptcy multiple times

Between competition from online retailers such as Shein and Temu, and too many physical stores for today's retail climate, Claire's has had a difficult time modernizing.

Red Lobster lost $11M on endless shrimp promotions—but its real estate holdings were what dragged it to bankruptcy

Golden Gate Capital, a PE firm, bought Red Lobster in 2014 for $2.1B. Golden Gate then sold Red Lobster's real estate, more than 500 storefronts, which generated $1.5B in revenue and helped finance the PE firm's acquisition of the company. Analysts say increased debt, high rent costs, and low equity put Red Lobster in an impossible position, leading to its 2024 bankruptcy filing—although the shrimp bill probably didn't help.

Many shows close without earning a profit

Broadway is a tough market, and a show closing early is relatively common, especially in the winter: Between December 2024 and February 2025, 17 shows closed. It's more than just low ticket sales: Broadway shows face a number of hurdles to success, including stop clauses and bad reviews.

Dollar stores often place staple items at the back of the store

This forces customers to encounter other, less-necessary items on their way there, leading to impulse buys. This video explains other ways that dollar stores make money while selling extremely cheap products, keeping dollar store profit margins relatively high.

In 2014, there were more payday loan stores than McDonalds

That year, there were more than 20,000 payday lenders in the US, according to the St. Louis Federal Reserve, and 14,267 McDonald's locations. Politicians and consumer advocates frequently cited this statistic as a selling point for increased regulation.

Data center companies are worsening housing undersupply in some regional markets

With large capital to spend, technology giants have disrupted the real estate market, driving up prices by outbidding commercial and residential developers and intensifying competition for available land. A property purchased over several years for $50M in Prince William County, Virginia, was sold to Amazon for $700M in 2025.

The story of Apple Pay Later, a short-lived BNPL service

Apple rolled out its own buy now, pay later service in 2023, but Apple shut it down the following year. Instead, Apple made changes to let its Apple Pay users make purchases and access installment loans through BNPL company Affirm.

Venture capitalists were once bullish on DTC brands

While a physical store can only hold so many objects, online retailers without the limits of four walls that could sell their products direct-to-consumer could theoretically be great investments. But they didn’t always provide investors with expected returns.

In 2023 and the first half of 2024, Berkshire Hathaway bought back more than $12B of its own stock

In the second half of 2024, the company—and Buffett—decided to buy up shares of Domino’s Pizza, Pool, Sirius XM Holdings, and Liberty Media. They also decided to sell Capital One, Ulta Beauty, and Nu Holdings, among others. Learn why Buffett is buying and selling these stocks and what it could mean for the financial conglomerate.

Visual Capitalist projects the fastest-shrinking jobs in America by 2034

According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, there will be fewer jobs for cashiers, bank tellers, data entry clerks, and more over the next decade.

Private equity deals sometimes come with layoffs

To increase profits, private equity firms often try to streamline and consolidate operations within the companies they acquire as much as possible. They also often alter company business models, expanding into new product offerings and markets that could necessitate team changes.

In 2024, 74% of homebuyers took out a mortgage

Debt owed on mortgages made up about 70% of US consumer debt as of 2025. Mortgage collateral ensures the lender isn’t at a complete loss if the borrower defaults. Under most mortgage contracts, the property is considered collateral under the loan. This means that if a borrower doesn’t repay the loan, then the lender can seize their property.

The billion-dollar ghost town in Baltimore

As a Rust Belt city looking to revitalize its economic core, Baltimore, Maryland, sought big investments from developers and municipalities. The so-called Baltimore Peninsula is a billion-dollar neighborhood in south Baltimore initially prompted by the investment of Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank. In 2025, the glossy, grand urban neighborhood is still empty, with fully-built condos and retail spaces.

By 2022, Meta was betting strongly on a metaverse strategy for its products

Moving beyond the controversies over fueling misinformation, division, and harm worldwide, Mark Zuckerberg expressed optimism about technology's role in connecting people. Meta's multibillion-dollar investments in integrative AR and VR technologies have further evolved its founder's vision.

The 2024 Synapse collapse took $90M of people’s life savings with it

In 2024, a banking middleman called Synapse declared bankruptcy. Unfortunately, it also locked roughly 100,000 Americans out of their own money, which prompted a class action lawsuit.

Over one-third of Americans have lost money on a gift card

They've done so by letting it expire (20%), losing the card (17%), or due to a retailer going out of business before they could redeem a card (12%). That's according to The Wall Street Journal, which cited Bankrate research from 2024. This article explains how to maximize your gift card's value.

In 2025, President Donald Trump signed an order shrinking the Department of Education

On March 20, 2025, President Donald Trump issued an executive order to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure” of the U.S. Department of Education, though complete dismantlement requires congressional approval.

In its famous catalog, Sears sold $600 DIY house kits from 1908 through the 1940s, resulting in an estimated 100,000 'Sears and Roebuck homes.'

US housing costs have risen by roughly 175% between 1991 and 2026—but a growing number of Gen Zers are becoming homeowners anyway. In 2025, 4% of homebuyers were Gen Z, up from 3% the year before.

How Amazon operates a 'flywheel' business model, a self-reinforcing cycle that drives continuous growth

When a Paris department store hesitated to sell Estée Lauder's perfume, she 'accidentally' broke a bottle, causing the smell to spread throughout the store and shoppers to start asking to buy the scent.

The USPS spent $3.97B in 2024, accounting for .058% of the federal budget.

SpaceX's S-1 or 'prospectus' revealed many previously unknown details about the company, including its unprofitability despite doing $18.7B in revenue in 2025, exactly how many voting shares Elon Musk will have in the company (roughly 85%), and more.

Netflix profits when you're not watching, and its movies are designed that way—read a detail-rich critical essay exposing lesser-known Netflix takes

11 people died from firework injuries in the US in 2024.

In 2025, four executives from large tech companies were given positions in the US Army Reserves—including Palantir Chief Technology Officer Shyam Sankar, which reinforced Palantir's ties with the US military and its role as a leading defense partner.

Fast-casual restaurant Chili's is experiencing a resurgence, with its parent company recently reporting a nearly 32% increase in sales, thanks to passionate Gen Z fans on TikTok.

Hedge funds, the private investment firms that trade a wide swath of financial assets, make money by imposing steep fees on investors and from the fund's investment performance.

Before the current East Wing ballroom project, only two White House renovations in the past 100 years cost more than $10M.

Memecoins are a type of cryptocurrency—a form of digital currency with a wide variety of uses—created around popular 'memes,' or viral internet jokes.

The use of fungi to detoxify land and water—a process known as mycoremediation—has been used to clean up natural resources affected by the 2025 California wildfires.

A century of Billboard issues documenting the evolution of popular music.

Gerrymandering works through two techniques: cracking opposing voters across districts to dilute their power, and packing them into a few to waste their votes in lopsided majorities.

The Beatles' US label rejected the band's first two singles, 'Please Please Me' and 'From Me to You,' with one executive calling the band 'dead in the water.'

See a 3D reconstruction of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital that was home to an estimated population of 200,000 to 400,000.

The first steps to rebuilding your credit score include getting to know exactly what's on your credit report and figuring out how far you are from the '700 club,' or 'good score' range.

The United States has had a tumultuous relationship with Cuba since its 1959 revolution, highlighted by a nuclear crisis and a decades-long trade embargo.

The hormonal disorder PCOS was renamed PMOS in 2026, a move designed to improve care and research by shifting the focus to the hormonal causes of this condition that affects 1 in 8 women.

Volcanoes 'die' when their supply of magma runs out, if they are shifted away from their underlying magma reservoir, or if they get clogged by collapsing or their magma cooling back into rock.

Alzheimer's can lead to brain shrinkage, with an average of around 2% of volume reduction per year

See how Budweiser's famous Clydesdales spend their days at Warm Springs Ranch, where roughly 70 to 80 of the beer brand's giant horses can be found at any given time.

For centuries, Niagara Falls has been a magnet for daredevils seeking to conquer one of nature's most powerful wonders, with its 200-foot drop and water rushing at 32 feet per second with 280 tons of force.