Macy's will be permanently shuttering several stores in 2023 as part of its Polaris transformation strategy which aims to optimize and reposition its mall and off-mall locations. The first batch of closures will take place in Los Angeles, Colorado, Maryland, and Hawaii. A clearance sale, which will run for approximately eight to 12 weeks, is set to begin this January.
In a statement to Axios, Macy's said it was committed to offering employees generous severance packages or alternate jobs in nearby locations. In February 2020, the department store chain, which includes Bloomingdale’s and Bluemercury, announced its intention to shutter a fifth of its locations (or 125 stores) as part of a three-year plan. This was followed by several rounds of closures from 2020 to 2022.
Managing Director of Global Data, Neil Saunders, addressed the Macy's store closures, saying most of the heavy lifting has been completed. He also told Axios that much of the "dead wood" has been cut out. "What we are seeing now is more an opportunistic and gentle pruning," he explained. He added that more shuttering is likely to follow as the retailer has many sub-optimal stores that will probably perform poorly in the struggling economy.
However, the high-end department store chain has opened quite a few new locations in 2022. This includes smaller format and new off-mall stores, as well as four Market by Macy’s outlets. Bloomingdale's is also set to open its third Bloomies in Seattle later this year, after successfully opening the same mini stores in Chicago and Virginia......More Below
Any moment now I am expecting John Cleese (a veteran of Monty Python) to jump out of the bushes and announce the creation of the Ministry of Silly Wars, with Donald Trump as the deranged leader. For you youngsters out there, Monty Python’s skit, The Ministry of Silly Walks, helped make the members of MP legends. I had to reference Monty Python because the line of bullshit the Trump administration is feeding the American people and the world about the amazing, obliterating US attack on Iranian nuclear sites on Sunday morning, is more ridiculous that all of the silly walks pictured in the following video:
My hopes that Donald Trump would finally act like a responsible adult are dashed. He’s a dangerous buffoon. While the team around him are working frantically to maintain the fiction that Trump has a vision and is calling the shots on the foreign policy front, he is careening around the globe like an out-of-control cue ball on a billiards table. It started a week ago… first, he claimed...
Tuesday marks the third anniversary of the launch of the Fujian, China's first aircraft carrier equipped with electromagnetic catapults. Official media said China is about to enter a three-aircraft-carrier era, with the Fujian expected to enter service by 2025.
After the launch of the Fujian on June 17, 2022, it carried out its first sea trial from May 1 to 8 in 2024. Since then, the Fujian has completed multiple sea trials, accumulating more than 100 days of sea trial, China Central Television (CCTV) News reported on Tuesday.
Wei Dongxu, a Chinese military affairs commentator, said that the aircraft carrier Fujian has been making steady progress in sea trials, and is expected to be commissioned within this year, CCTV News reported.
With a full displacement of more than 80,000 tons, the Fujian is the world's first conventionally powered aircraft carrier to feature electromagnetic catapult technologies, according to CCTV News. The report noted that it will carry a wide variety of carrier-borne...
Chinese President Xi Jinping said Tuesday that China and Central Asian countries have explored and formed the China-Central Asia Spirit, which features mutual respect, mutual trust, mutual benefit, mutual assistance, and the pursuit of common modernization through high-quality development.
Xi made the remarks in his speech at the second China-Central Asia Summit in the Kazakh capital of Astana.
Xi said that the Chinese side has decided to establish three cooperation centers and a trade facilitation platform within the China-Central Asia cooperation mechanism.
When addressing the summit, Xi said these institutions include the China-Central Asia poverty reduction cooperation center, the China-Central Asia education exchange cooperation center, the China-Central Asia desertification control cooperation center, as well as the China-Central Asia trade facilitation cooperation....more below
