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Discount retailers have been hit hard in 2025, with major chains like Big Lots and Dollar General shuttering stores. However, one discount retailer seems to be bucking that trend. Teen and tween discount retail chain Five Below has announced that it will be opening 150 new stores this year, adding to the companys already sizable footprint. Heres what you need to know about the openings. Five Below to open 150 new stores in 2025 On Wednesday, Five Below, Inc. reported its Q4 and fiscal 2024 financial results as well as issued its outlook for its Q1 and fiscal 2025. For its Q4 2024, the company saw net sales increase 4% year over year to $1.39 billion. It also had an adjusted EPS of $3.48. Those results beat Wall Street estimates by 1% and 3.3%, respectively, notes StockStory. As for its full fiscal 2024, Five Below said its net sales increased 8.9% to $3.88 billion. The Wall Street beats and earnings growth caused Five Below stock to jump as much as 12% in after-hours tradinga sign of investor relief after the company, like many discount retailers, has had to struggle with inflation-weary consumers pulling back on discretionary spending in recent years. But Five Below also announced something else alongside its earning results. The company confirmed it will be opening 150 new locations in fiscal 2025. Currently, the company says it ended fiscal 2024 with 1,771 locations. That means that Five Below expects to expand its total store count by about 8.5% this financial year. Five Below has not said where the 150 new locations will be, but the company currently has stores in 44 states, and its average store size is around 9,000 square feet. However, there are a few things to note about the companys planned 150 new stores. While new locations are a vote of confidence by a retailer that its business is moving in the right direction, this isnt the first time Five Below said it would be opening new stores during fiscal 2024. When Five Below reported its Q2 2024 earnings back in August 2024, the company announced that it planned to open 150 to 180 stores in 2025. It seems the company has now settled on the lower end of that original figure. The anticipated 150 new stores in fiscal 2025 are also below the 227 net new stores the company opened in fiscal 2024 and the 204 net new stores it opened in fiscal 2023. Trump tariff troubles But while investors seem to have reacted positively to Five Belows most recent financial results, the company did note that it faces some headwinds. Five Below is a discount retailer that mainly sells items that appeal to teens and tweens. Many of the companys products sell for under $5 apiece, with many items costing as low as $1, $2, or $3. Five Below imports many of these low-cost goods from overseas, and, as noted by MarketWatch, the company revealed yesterday that around 60% of its goods came from China. That could be a problem for Five Below as President Trump has so far focused on the heaviest tariff increases in his tariff war on China. In other words, Five Below could soon be paying more for the majority of the goods it imports. Like most companies, it would then likely pass the cost of those tariffs onto consumers, who are already dealing with rising costs due to inflationary pressures. Indeed, as MarketWatch notes, Five Below has also confirmed that it will be raising the prices on some items that currently cost below $5. Whether tariff-induced price rises at Five Below turn off shoppers remains to be seen. Five Below stock soars, but it’s still down for the year After yesterdays earnings results, the stock price of Five Below (Nasdaq: FIVE) surged. FIVE stock jumped over 12% in after-hours trading. As of the time of this writing, FIVE stock is up around 11% in premarket trading to just over $84 per share. Before Five Below announced its earnings after the closing bell yesterday, FIVE stock closed at $75.59. Yet despite its stock price jump in the past day, FIVE shares have still had a rough 2025. As of yesterdays close, FIVE shares were down nearly 28% since the beginning of the year. And over the past 12 months, FIVE shares had fallen more than 63%.
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E-Commerce
Too often, we get stuck waitingwaiting for a boss, a higher-up, or even a partner to hand us the reins and tell us its our time to shine. But heres the truth: empowerment isnt something youre given. Its something you take. If things arent going your way, theres no one else to blameits up to you to make a move. If youre tired of waiting for someone else to recognize your potential or tell you what to do next, here are three actionable steps to take control and empower yourself today: Stop Asking for PermissionStart Taking Initiative Empowerment begins when you stop waiting for someone to tell you what to do and start taking proactive steps toward what you know needs to be done. Identify a recurring problem at work and propose a solution to your team or supervisor. Even if its not implemented, the act of stepping forward demonstrates your leadership mindset and builds confidence. Instead of waiting for your boss to address a gap in team communication, suggest implementing a weekly check-in meeting. Better yet, create a suggested communication matrix with specific questions to ask to ensure gaps are minimized. Taking initiative shows you care about the teams success and your role in it. This puts you in the best position to shine and to keep top-of-mind when positions or projects pop up that require your skillset. Remember that your boss most likely has a busy calendar with shifting priorities and mounting headaches, if you can make their job easier and alleviate some of their headaches, you will be the hero in their workplace story. Word will travel that you are resourceful. Cultivate Self-Awareness and Lean into Your Strengths Understanding your own strengths, weaknesses, and values is the foundation of self-leadership. You dont need your boss to define your roleyou need to define how you show up in it. This simple reframe will help you take back the influence that many of us give away. Spend 10 minutes each week reflecting on recent wins and challenges. What strengths did you leverage? Where could you improve? Use this insight to guide your actions. Also, assess how you feel at the end of each day for one week and note which job functions you were performing when you felt like you were succeeding and when you felt most stressed. That will help you pinpoint the best positions and functions for you. If youre naturally skilled at relationship-building, consider how you can use that strength to foster collaboration or improve team dynamics, even without being prompted. It will be those relationships that will get you through tough times and could prove beneficial when up for that next promotion too. Dont forget that you are the captain of your own ship and the chief navigator of your workplace and life experiences. You do not need to be the victim or bystander. Embrace Feedback as a Tool, not a Threat Empowered leaders view feedback as an opportunity to grow, not as a personal attack. Seek out feedback proactively, even if its uncomfortableits a critical step in refining your approach and building trust. Without this feedback, you will undoubtedly experience blindspots on your journey. Be open to feedback if you want to minimize painful mistakes. At the end of a project or meeting, ask a colleague or manager, Whats one thing I did well, and one thing I could improve? Listen without defensiveness and take actionable steps to improve. Younger says, We can choose to remove the clay that we place over our brilliance. She points out that being proactive about requesting feedback allows our brilliance to shine through. When receiving feedback that your presentations need more clarity, take a public speaking course or workshop to elevate your skills and demonstrate your commitment to growth. In this example, be sure to ask what specific areas of your presentation lack clarity. That way, you will not waste time on the wrong things. Often, people shy away from feedback, because they are afraid of what they might find. Those who are eager to go into the unknown of feedback and take in the good with the bad quickly discover the benefits. We cannot be our best and become more self-empowered unless we know where to smooth our rough edges. The good news is that we all have them. So, there is nothing to be ashamed about. Instead, look at the courage you display when you eagerly seek the feedback as a badge of honor. Claim Your Leadership Role Empowerment isnt a gift someone hands youits a mindset you cultivate. By taking initiative, leveraging your strengths, and embracing feedback, you build the confidence and competence needed to lead yourselfand, in turn, inspire those around you. Stop waiting for permission. Start leading yourself, and watch how others begin to follow.
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E-Commerce
In an era where nearly everything we do carries a digital footprint, experts warn that our freedoms are increasingly under attack. But the average internet user can take steps to fight back against threats that range from mass surveillance to the decline of net neutrality to changes to the very architecture of the internet. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is calling on people to become involved in the nonprofit’s wide-ranging work at the intersection of technology and civil liberties. Last month, for example, it filed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests seeking transparency about DOGEs access to Americans personal information and has a petition for people to sign that will be sent to Congressional members. There’s such an important space for everyone to be involved in defending and continuing to advance rights, Nicole Ozer, technology and civil liberties director for the ACLU of Northern California, said during a discussion at the Fast Company Grill at SXSW. This is not a moment where we just have to crawl into a ball, this is a moment where we have to be aggressively using our entire toolkit to be doing what’s right for ourselves and our communities. Fighting for what people want is important, especially because many people may not appreciate the access afforded by the internet, added Alissa Starzak, deputy chief legal officer and global head of policy at Cloudflare. We sort of take it for granted, but now is a time when it’s starting to fall apart, and so really thinking about what we can do to sort-of make sure that doesn’t happen is going to be important. What’s scary right now One sign that Western democracies are moving closer to their versions of a restricted internet was the recent, temporary ban of TikTok, said Stan Adams, public policy specialist at the Wikimedia Foundation. As a precedent, that is not a great thing for Western democracies. The TikTok ban also raised important questions about who implements that type of banand how, Starzak added. People are going down into the internet’s architecture and they’re changing things so that they can limit access, and that is a very scary world if you think about the open internet as a good thing. Whats more, in a time when were all living incredibly digital lives, the ACLU is focused on ensuring that all of digital informationabout who we are, where we go, what we do, and what we knowis safeguarded and isnt weaponized against us, Ozer said. For example, the ACLU is working to pass laws to limit the use of geofence warrants so the government cant find out every single person who has been somewhere at a given timebe it SXSW, a protest, or a reproductive clinic, Ozer added. That is so scary, particularly in this current moment. Even age verification laws for certain websites, which Adams pointed out are ostensibly intended to keep children from viewing harmful content, also have implications for digital freedom. Thats because they serve as a partial block to people who don’t have a government ID, people who cannot prove who they are, or people who don’t want to submit a facial scan. It’s still a trend in the wrong direction, Adams said. Its just a soft way of saying don’t go there, which is bad for internet freedom generally. Why activism matters If Cloudflare gets pressured to block something, the company prioritizes transparency and tries to advertise whats happening so that people know, Starzak said. The reality is if you live in a democracy, you should care about these issues. Whats more, she said, there have been some victories that show the power of activismsuch as early-2010s opposition to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA), which the U.S. Congress ultimately decided not to pass that legislation. We all have a role to play, Starzak said. Adams and Ozer echoed this sentiment. People like the internet, we all use it, it’s a valuable tool for everyone, Adams said. And when we get upset about things that the government does or the companies do, we should speak out about that. Finally, Ozer emphasized that people have more power than they may realize, especially when it comes to issues people care about. Democracy doesn’t defend itself and laws don’t pass on their own, she said. We have to have the power as people to move those issues forward.
Category:
E-Commerce
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