Market Watch

A customer looks through some clothing at Goodwill Industries of the Upstate/Midlands’ Auten’s Loft, a new upscale boutique offering discounts on name brands. Photo provided Goodwill Andrea Smith, director and CEO of Senior Action , said philanthropy can’t keep up with her clients’ needs. Two problems many nonprofits face are growing costs and more cash-strapped donors. To balance budgets and serve clients, many of them have had to adopt business and for-profit measures to stay afloat. It’s spurring a new era of philanthropy in which the old ways of simply opening the collection basket are no longer the focus — rather, nonprofits are becoming ever more entrepreneurial to meet modern challenges. Office space A painting workshop at Senior Action. Photo provided Senior Action, whose main office is at 3715 E. North St., Suite K, in Greenville, offers many services to seniors, including wellness, financial help and outreach. Still, with the Upstate’s growing senior population, the client base is growing quickly. Several years ago, the organization had outgrown its old office space but didn’t have the funding to move. It decided it was best to get into business for itself by purchasing a shopping center, the former location of a […]

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Global Grocery Market in Brooklyn Park allows customers to shop in person or order online for delivery. When the COVID-19 pandemic ground the world to a halt a few years ago, many Minnesotans turned to delivery services for their groceries. But as 2020 came to a close, Choua Xiong and her husband, Kao Vue, kept hearing: Why doesn’t anyone deliver Asian and African groceries? “We don’t have any sort of service like that, especially when the pandemic hit,” Xiong said. “You have to go out if you want the Asian or African groceries that you’re looking for. You have to go to the store, and there was no convenience where you could order online. “I just kept hearing, ‘Why doesn’t anyone want to offer this in Minnesota?’ We just decided to jump on the idea, and once we did, we realized there are a ton of people who want it.” Xiong, 33, and Vue, 33, who are second-generation Hmong Americans, decided to meet that need by opening the Global Grocery Market in 2020. “Right when the pandemic was happening, I was getting laid off and my husband was getting a pay cut,” said Xiong. The Brooklyn Park-based business specializes […]

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Gov. Gretchen Whitmer delivers her fifth State of the State address on Jan. 25, 2023. (Andrew Roth/Michigan Advance) Throughout Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s fifth State of the State address Wednesday night, she drew connections between the many civil rights issues she has championed for years and the need to strengthen the state’s economy. “Bigotry is bad for business,” Whitmer said before receiving a standing ovation from the crowd of lawmakers and state leaders. Jobs, education, gun reform and reproductive rights were among the top priorities Whitmer highlighted during her first in-person State of the State address since 2020. Another major difference between this year’s speech and those in previous years is that Whitmer spoke to a Legislature with a Democratic majority. So her priorities have a better chance of becoming legislation and making it to her desk now that Democrats control the House and Senate. “We spoke with a clear voice in November. We want the ability to raise a family without breaking the bank, strong protections for our fundamental rights to vote and control our own bodies and leaders who will work across the aisle to solve problems and deliver on the issues that make a real difference in […]

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Photo: ©5PH – STOCK.ADOBE.COM BOONTON, NJ. — Plant-based snacks maker Real Food From the Ground Up has acquired the Food Should Taste Good business from General Mills, Inc., Minneapolis. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Founded in 2006, Needham Heights, Mass.-based Food Should Taste Good makes natural tortilla chips and multigrain bean chips. General Mills acquired Food Should Taste Good in early 2012 . At that time, the business was folded into Small Planet Foods, General Mills’ natural and organic product business that has brands such as Cascadian Farm, Muir Glen and Larabar. Moving forward, Food Should Taste Good was no longer seen as a fit for General Mills, the company said. “Consistent with our ‘accelerate’ strategy, General Mills is reshaping its portfolio,” said Chelcy Walker, a spokesperson for General Mills. “This sale is to the right buyer with clear expertise in the tortilla chip business. There will be no job loss as part of this divestiture, and no employees will be transitioning to the buyer.”

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Right to repair is a movement, legislative wave, and well-meaning idea that says people who buy durable products like mobile phones, tractors and dishwashers should be allowed to get them fixed by someone other than the original equipment manufacturer (OEM). This sounds reasonable, and yet the corporate opposition is coming from brands many people trust and love like John Deere, Apple AAPL +1% , and General Electric GE -0.3% . Maybe the problem is that we’re trying to solve a relationship problem with a divorce settlement. No one wins but the lawyers. Dear John Deere, Please Let Me Fix My Tractor At the State University of New York in Cobleskill, college kids study agricultural equipment in a long-standing partnership with John Deere. The students wear caps and sweatshirts with the Deere logo proclaiming their love and loyalty for the brand. The same dedication can be seen with Caterpillar CAT -0.3% , Husqvarna, and Stihl among the ag-mech and forestry crowd at SUNY Cobleskill. It’s a familiar phenomenon with brands that customers love and identify with over time – like Harley Davidson, Tesla, and of course Apple. These customers are strong net-promoters with high repurchase rates. They want to be […]

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Putting an emphasis on creating a great customer experience while also giving back to the world is common practice for retailers today, but Kendra Scott has been taking this approach since it was created two decades ago. CEO Tom Nolan reveals how the retailer’s drive to keep Founder Kendra Scott’s social and entrepreneurial vision alive has helped the organization by: Enabling the company to maintain double-digit growth throughout the pandemic despite the economic and social uncertainty of the past two years; Embedding the appreciation for agility that helped the company reimagine its supply chain to navigate the industrywide crunch without facing any disruptions; Achieving truly authentic philanthropy through a combination of events and investments in causes ranging from helping women become leaders to bringing cheer to children’s hospitals; and Continuing to build on its foundational principles as the retailer evolves with new product offerings, initiatives and experience. RTP: Kendra Scott saw double-digit growth from 2020 to 2021 and is on track for its biggest year to date. What is your strategy for maintaining high levels of growth despite the uncertainty of the past several years? Tom Nolan: I think overall our success always starts with the same thing: we […]

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Colossal credit card companies Mastercard ( MA ) and Visa ( V ) report earnings results on Thursday. Mastercard announces fourth quarter results before the market opens. Visa kicks off its fiscal 2023 results after the closing bell. MA stock rose on Wednesday. Visa stock edged up slightly ahead of Thursday’s announcements. A backdrop of rising interest rates can be a positive for the big credit card processors. But those interest rates also squeeze consumers, who have also grown increasingly wary of a possible recession. Wells Fargo analyst Donald Fandetti expects these factors to make most of 2023 a challenging environment for consumer finance company fundamentals, he wrote in a mid-December research note. However, easing travel-related concerns and revenue other than consumer credit cards is improving company diversification. Also, additional payment flows outside of consumer cards should extend Visa and Mastercard’s growth, KeyBanc analyst Josh Beck noted on Jan. 9. On Tuesday, MA stock and Visa stock veered sharply higher and lower amid the New York Stock Exchange’s trading malfunction. Both hit "circuit breakers" and were temporarily halted. MA stock ended Wednesday up 1.6% so far this week, while V stock has edged 0.3% higher in that time. Mastercard […]

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Luxury resale platform The RealReal is betting on a new CEO to help it achieve profitability, after founder Julie Wainwright stepped down from the role last June. The company has announced that John Koryl, an experienced exec whose CV includes stints at Neiman Marcus and Ebay, will become CEO and join its board of directors on 6 February. Chief operating officer Rati Sahi Levesque and chief financial officer Robert Julian, who have been acting as co-interim CEOs of The RealReal since Wainwright stepped down, will resume their respective roles, and Levesque will take on the additional role of president. The RealReal is among a number of fashion companies, including Gap and VF Corp, that have been without a permanent CEO for some time as they fight to regain ground since the pandemic. It is one of several resale and rental platforms that have yet to make the circularity-focused business model profitable, including Thredup and Rent the Runway. Wainwright’s departure came a few months after The RealReal — which went public in 2019 — revealed that its losses had widened to $236 million in 2021, from $176 million the year before. In its most recent earnings, for the third quarter […]

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getty Digital business models are revolutionizing how leaders conduct business. This is not just a technology industry phenomenon but one that reaches across industries. With your car having more computing power than your phone from ten years ago, is there any doubt that many industries are heavily technology dependent? Understanding how digital business works makes it clear how Southwest Airlines’ 2022 “ holiday meltdown ” was actually a technology meltdown. As we transform into digital business models, we also need to transform our business ecosystems in order to implement and sustain these new technologies. In doing so, we become strategically dependent on ecosystem partnering. Ecosystem Partnering One of the best practices in developing a partnering capability is doing a periodic assessment of that capability so you know where you can improve and shore up weaknesses. The same is true of ecosystems, which are communities of partnerships. But there are some key differences when assessing partnering capability within ecosystems. While there are many partnering assessments out there that help address partnering capability on a bilateral basis, I have yet to see any that are oriented toward assessing capacity and maturity within an ecosystem. To create an assessment along these lines, […]

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Editorial Note: We earn a commission from partner links on Forbes Advisor. Commissions do not affect our editors’ opinions or evaluations. Small business owners who can’t qualify for traditional loans or need cash quickly can turn to alternative lending options like online loans, lines of credit and merchant cash advances (MCAs). While many forms of alternative financing provide flexibility for entrepreneurs, there are some potential risks associated with these methods. Featured Partner Offer What Is Alternative Business Lending? Alternative business lending is a type of financing that provides businesses with access to capital when traditional options, such as bank loans, are not available. It includes various methods of borrowing money, such as online term loans and lines of credit, MCAs, equipment financing and invoice factoring. Alternative financing methods also include things like peer-to-peer (P2P) lending and crowdfunding. Alternative lenders for small businesses can provide quick and easy access to funds for those who may not qualify for more traditional business financing. These alternative options are often more flexible than traditional bank loans, providing faster approval and funding times for businesses that need money fast. Notably, however, interest rates are often higher than for other types of business loans . […]

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