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Joann fabrics, the beloved fabrics, arts, and crafts retailer, is finally shutting its doors for good after a long, slow goodbye. While many of its 800 stores have already been shuttered since the company filed for bankruptcy (yet again) in January, the last 444 Joann stores (yes, you read that right) will finally shut their doors on Friday, May 30, according to Joann’s website. What happened? As Fast Company previously reported, the popular fabrics and crafts supplier announced earlier this year that it would close all its U.S. locations after it filed for bankruptcy in January 2025, marking the second time Joann declared bankruptcy in less than a year. It also laid off all 19,000 workers, including more than 15,000 part-time store associates. Like many brick-and-mortar retailers that have filed for bankruptcy, including Party City and Forever 21, Joann faced declining sales and foot traffic since the COVID-19 pandemic, as more Americans shop online and curb spending due to higher prices, the soaring cost of living, inflation, and President Donald Trump’s on-again, off-again tariff wars. Customers take to social media to lament the store’s demise From TikTok and Reddit to Instagram and Facebook, customers have been taking to social media, posting tearfully and nostalgically about time they spent in the store. Some even shared last haul videos of what they bought in the store’s final days. On Reddit, nostalgic customers and workers posted multiple threads saying “goodbye” to individual stores. Some featured photos of the shuttered front door, like this one, which read, “RIP Joann 1943-2025: Died due to private equity and corporate greed,” lamenting the end of 80 years in business. (More on the private equity aspect below.) Meanwhile, on TikTok, one woman with tears in her eyes posted, “Y’all I really can’t believe but I just really had a moment, Joann is fing closing . . . It’s so unfortunate.” Joann’s final years By the 1990s, Joann became the largest fabric and crafts retail superstore in the U.S., and was taken private in 2011 by Leonard Green & Partners, a private equity firm, for around $1.6 billion. Then, a decade later, it went public again as the COVID-19 pandemic fueled an uptick in crafting, Fast Company previously reported. However, like for many brick-and-mortar retailers, profits began to decline after the pandemic, leaving the company with $616 million in reported debt obligations when it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in January. Some critics and customers blame Joann’s demise on private equity, which has increasingly been at the helm of large-scale business restructurings and closings, and been accused of stripping companies for parts instead of bringing them back to profitability. However, many experts have said it’s not that simple, and Joann’s failure is based on a mix of factors that go into the current economics of U.S. retail conditions. A look at the numbers shows Joann fabrics’ last reported revenue of $539.80 million for its third quarter of fiscal year 2024 ending October 28, 2023, which was a decrease of 4.09%. That brought revenue in the last twelve months up to that date to $2.16 billion, down 4.20% year-over-year. In the fiscal year ending January 28, 2023, Joann had an annual revenue of $2.22 billion. Its last reported market cap was $3.20 million.
Category:
E-Commerce
The Walt Disney Company said yesterday that it is rolling out a new perks program for subscribers of its Disney Plus streaming service. The program features 11 benefits that Disney Plus users can take advantage of, so long as they remain a paying subscriber. But it’s likely that Disney isnt offering these benefits out of the goodness of their little mouse heart. Instead, the perks are likely an effort to reduce one of the biggest threats that Disney Plus and all other streaming services face: “churn.” That’s the industry term for when subscribers cancel a service during a specific period. What did Disney announce? The Walt Disney Company launched the new perks program yesterday, which is now available to all Disney Plus subscribers in the United States. Disney says the new perks program will be rolling out to other geographic regions later this year. Upon its launch, the program features 11 perks that subscribers can take advantage of. However, it remains to be seen how compelling the perks will be to the average subscriber, as they appear to be a mixed bag of random free trials, discounts, and contests. For example, two of the 11 perks are for contests. One, if you win, will let you attend the Freakier Friday world premiere in August, while the other gives you a chance to win a free Disney cruise. In other words, these perks wont be available to every Disney Plus subscribermerely the chance to win them will be. The perks are also full of free trials or limited memberships, including a three-month free trial of Clear+, the airport security membership program; a two-month Super Duolingo free trial; and a six-month free DashPass membershipbut only if youve never been a DashPass subscriber before. Random discounts are also available, including 20% off at adidas.com, and 15% off at Funko.com and Loungefly.com. Subscribers can also get lower rates at select Disney resorts. And then there are digital perks, including free emoji, early access to the digital pin collectable experience, Disney Pinnacle; and free in-game tokens for the Monopoly Go! and Star Wars TIE Fighter games. The perks are available to all Disney Plus subscribers in the United States, and there is no extra charge for accessing them. An effort to reduce churn Though Disney did not specifically state that its new “always-on” perks program was an effort to reduce churn, thats likely what it is designed for. Churn is the industry term that describes subscribers who cancel their streaming subscriptions, often when theyve watched all the content they want to see, such as a specific movie or series. Instead of continuing to be an active subscriber to the service, they will cancel it to save money and then only resubscribe when the service has new content they want to watch. Churn stops Disney and other streaming services from receiving monthly recurring revenue from individuals. Instead of subscribing for the whole year, a subscriber who churns may cancel the service in February and not resubscribe until September, when new content of interest to them becomes available. This cycle of canceling and resubscribing is very familiar to streaming customers who juggle a lot of services and aim to keep their monthly entertainment costs down. In fact, you might say that easy cancellation was the original “perk” of the streaming revolutionoffering a contrast to the long-term contracts that were so prevalent during the traditional cable TV era. Disney is apparently hoping that by adding always-on perks, it will reduce subscriber churn, as when the subscription stops, so do the additional perks. But that carrot-style approach will only work if the subscribers find value in the perks to begin with. Not the first time Disney Plus has offered perks Disney announced its new perks program as an always-on one. It went with this branding because this isnt the first time that Disney has offered perks to Disney Plus subscribers. In the past, it has offered time-limited perks, like reduced fares on select Disney Cruise products. But given that most of the always-on perks are still limitedsuch as the free trials and contestsit’s hard to imagine that most Disney Plus subscribers who are churners will stick around just for the perks, unless they do a lot of shopping at Funko and Addidas and really want those 15% and 20% discounts. However, it should be noted that Disney says new Perks will drop regularly. The company is also rolling out perks to Hulu subscribers starting in June, which include more contests and nondescript exclusive perks from LG, Microsoft, and Pure Green. Streaming is more important than ever to Disney Disney Plus is a significant focus for the Walt Disney Company, as the service is a potentially massive source of recurring income. Therefore, its no wonder that Disney wants to make it as appealing as possible to retain subscribers and reduce churn. Recently, signs point to Disney being aware of a possible slowdown in Disney Plus growth. When it reported results for its second-quarter fiscal 2025 in March, Disney said it had 126 million Disney Plus subscribers during the period, up by 1.4 million from the quarter before. However, the company gave a lukewarm forecast for Disney Plus in the current Q3. Disney said it expects to see only a modest increase in Disney+ subscribers compared to the service’s Q2 fiscal 2025 numbers.
Category:
E-Commerce
It’s become commonplace to message someone a photo, text them an address, and switch to a video chat all in the middle of a phone call. But 911 systems, largely designed for the era of landlines, don’t typically allow for those luxuries, even when callers are trying to communicate address information from a noisy environment or share a photo of an ongoing emergency. A startup called Prepared is working to change that, helping emergency call takers communicate more efficiently with people in situations where every second matters by enabling text, photo, and video communication and providing AI tools to transcribe and even translate conversations in real time. Cofounder and CEO Michael Chime says he had initially focused on providing an app to help schools during emergencies, having grown up near to a school shooting. During the COVID pandemic, when schools were closed, he communicated with school districts about additional features they might want, and several mentioned difficulty sharing detailed data with 911 centers during an emergency. The company then began to focus on technology allowing livestreaming video to 911 centers and has since expanded to add additional AI-powered features like transcription and live translation. Already, the technology is being used by more than 1,000 emergency call centersknown as public-safety access points, or PSAPsaround the country, including those serving Las Vegas, Nashville, and Baltimore. And the company just announced a new $80 million Series C funding round, led by General Catalyst with participation from Andreessen Horowitz and First Round Capital, bringing their total funding to $125 million. “Our mission is to make sure every emergency gets the best possible response,” Chime says. One challenge facing the agencies that handle emergency calls is that while call volume continues to grow in many locations, staffing often doesn’t rise to match it. Prepared’s technology is designed to help call takers handle calls faster and more accurately, getting correct data to dispatchers who in turn send firefighters, police, EMTs, or other responders to emergencies. [Image: Courtesy of Prepared] “It takes a tremendous amount of multitasking,” Chime says. “They have to listen, give thoughtful responses, make sure you feel good and safe, while also collecting all the key details.” Prepared generates automated summaries, which can be visible to both call takers and dispatchers, automatically highlighting key information like addresses and descriptions of people or vehicles involved in an incident. And transcripts can also help call takers verify they heard everything correctlyeven on a noisy lineand let them quickly ensure that they’ve gathered all required information before ending the call. Prepared’s technology is easy to integrate into existing workflows, letting call takers see the platform’s information alongside their existing software tools. And call centers can easily have their phone systems duplicate calls to Prepared’s system for processing without disturbing their existing routing configurations. “I actually think it’s helping with our retention too,” says Kari Morrissey, director, emergency communications for Anoka County, Minnesota. “Because there’s a lot to learn as a new telecommunicator.” The AI can also help prompt call takers to make sure to ask specific questions and otherwise follow specified protocols even in stressful situations. If call centers desire, the AI can also help in quality assurance reviews after the fact, highlighting correct protocol and any areas for improvement. [Image: Courtesy of Prepared] Prepared’s software can also transcribe emergency radio communications, helpful to dispatchers who are often required to monitor multiple radio channels at once. And automatic translation can dramatically cut response times for callers speaking a language not known to call center workers. Instead of trying to identify the language and conference in an appropriate interpreter, call takers can see an automated translation of what they’re hearing and often type in a response, which will be translated back to be read aloud or texted to the caller. That also makes it easy for call takers to simply copy-and-paste typical questions to be translated, though Prepared is working on direct speech translation as well. [Image: Courtesy of Prepared] A call that could take 15 minutes, including connecting with an interpreter, can be processed in just three or four minutes with Prepared’s translation in place, says Anthony Mignogna, chief of communications and 911 coordinator for the Delaware County Department of Emergency Services in Pennsylvania. “It really covers that hurdlethat gapthat we have with the legacy system,” e says. The system also helps gather health data from callers’ phones if they have the opt-in Medical ID feature on their smartphones, which can automatically route health data to 911 call centers, enabled. And it cleanly highlights caller locations on a map for call takers to see, helping to ease a traditional hurdle of getting accurate location information from callers, Mignogna says. “We get a lot of supplemental data just by somebody dialing 911, which you wouldn’t get on that traditional 911 phone call,” he says. Prepared also enables emergency call centers to receive textshelpful in situations where people can’t speak for safety or medical reasonsand to send texts to callers, requesting more information or including links that let callers send photos or stream video of their surroundings to help emergency responders understand the situation.Prepared’s technology can even potentially handle some calls to nonemergency lines on its own, with the AI system collecting information and generating a transcript that can be quickly reviewed by human staff. One human can review multiple calls at once, jumping in if there’s an issue, and the AI can automatically reroute calls describing a potential emergency like chest pain to 911. But Chime says the company has no plans to replace human call takers altogether, instead using AI to enhance their ability to handle emergency calls. “Humans have limitations, like I haven’t met anybody who speaks 30 languages,” Chime says. “But the technology can empower them to do that.”
Category:
E-Commerce
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