• by Tanya Gazdik , August 20, 2024

It’s hard to be completely negative about brick-and-mortar retail.

Barnes & Noble is on track to open 58 new locations before 2025—more stores than it’s opened in a single year since at least 2009.

“Back then, Barnes & Noble was facing what looked like existential threats from Amazon and the broader shift to online commerce, not to mention a decline in print media that had many industry insiders questioning the future viability of books,” according to Fast Company. “Amazon’s first Kindle was released in 2007 while Barnes & Noble followed up with its Nook e-reader two years later. At one point, it was dedicating a good chunk of precious shelf space to the sterile-looking devices.”

Meanwhile, Rite Aid is working through its restructuring process after filing for bankruptcy last year, according to Fast Company. It plans to close all 170 remaining stores in Michigan as it exits the state entirely, according to MLive. Nearly all of its stores in Ohio are also slated to close.

While Rite Aids aren’t doing well, 7-Eleven retail stores appear to be open for a takeover. 

“A Canadian convenience store giant wants to buy the Japanese company that operates 7-Eleven in a deal that would create one of the world’s largest retail groups,” according to The New York Times. “Japan’s Seven & i Holdings, which operates 85,000 stores, said it had received a bid from the Canadian convenience store chain Alimentation Couche-Tard.” 

It would be the biggest foreign takeover of a Japanese company on record and the largest cross-border acquisition this year, according to CNN Business.