Macy’s just laid out results from its Bold New Chapter strategy that every retailer should study. The Reimagine store program now covers 200 stores, 60 percent of the fleet and 75 percent of store business. Average unit retail rose 9 percent across all three brands since the strategy started. That’s not a minor improvement. That’s a fundamental shift in how the company makes money per transaction. The strategy is working, and the numbers prove it.
Chairman Tony Spring said the strategy was intended to grow the company and improve customer experience. Both are happening. Bloomingdale’s continued to grow at a strong pace. Bluemercury remained on a growth path. The multi-brand approach is paying dividends because each brand serves a different customer segment with different needs and different price points. That diversification provides resilience when one segment faces headwinds.
What Macy’s Got Right
The strategy focused on quality over quantity. Better product mix. Stronger fashion authority. Improved shopping experience. These aren’t flashy moves. They’re fundamental business improvements that compound over time. When you consistently offer better products in a better environment, customers notice. They come back more often. They spend more per visit. They tell their friends. That flywheel effect is what drives sustainable retail growth, and Macy’s is executing it well across all three of their brands.
Meanwhile, Whitbread closed all 106 Beefeater restaurants in one week. The reason wasn’t about restaurants. It was about what a business decides it’s allowed to keep doing when costs are up and returns are being scrutinized line by line across the entire portfolio. That’s strategic discipline in action. Sometimes the hardest business decision is killing something that’s been around for decades but no longer serves the company’s future direction.
The pattern across sectors is clear. Strip out the parts of the business that dilute margin. Put everything behind the part that’s actually working. That’s hard because cutting a division means cutting a team, and the people who built that part of the business are usually the last to be asked whether it should exist. But it’s necessary for survival in competitive markets where every dollar of margin matters. AI tools can help you identify which parts of your business are actually driving results and which are just consuming resources without proportional returns.
Lessons for Other Retailers
Macy’s success with the Reimagine program offers several lessons for other retailers. First, focus on the stores that matter most. You don’t need to reinvent your entire fleet at once. Pick the stores that generate the most business and invest heavily in them. That concentrated investment delivers better returns than spreading resources thin across every location. Second, improve the customer experience relentlessly. Small improvements in store layout, product selection, and staff training compound into significant gains over time.
Third, use data to inform decisions. Macy’s knows exactly which stores are performing and which aren’t. They know what products sell and what doesn’t. They know which customer segments are growing and which are shrinking. That data-driven approach allows them to allocate resources where they’ll have the most impact. Gut instinct has its place, but data should drive the big strategic decisions. The companies that win are the ones that combine good instincts with solid data.
The retail landscape in 2026 is brutally competitive. E-commerce giants continue to take market share. Consumers have more choices than ever. And economic uncertainty makes every purchase decision more deliberate. In this environment, retailers can’t afford to be mediocre at anything. They need to excel at something specific — whether that’s price, selection, experience, or convenience. Macy’s has chosen experience and product quality as their differentiators, and they’re investing accordingly. That clarity of focus is what separates winners from losers in retail today.
The financial results validate the approach. When average unit retail rises 9 percent, it means customers are willing to pay more for what you’re offering. That’s pricing power, and it’s the holy grail of retail. Pricing power comes from brand strength, product quality, and customer experience. Macy’s is building all three simultaneously through their Reimagine program. The investment is significant, but the returns are measurable and growing. This is how you turn around a legacy retailer in the age of e-commerce. Focus, invest, execute, and measure everything.
The broader lesson for any business is that strategy execution matters more than strategy formulation. Lots of companies have good strategies. Very few execute them consistently and measurably. Macy’s is doing both, and the results show it. If you have a strategy that’s working, double down on it. If you don’t, figure out what will work and commit to it fully. Half-measures produce half-results. Full commitment produces transformation. That’s the Macy’s lesson, and it applies to every business in every industry.
For your own business, the lesson is simple. Audit your operations honestly. What’s working? What’s not? Where are you spreading resources too thin? Focus is the hardest strategy to execute because it means saying no to things you’ve been doing for years. But the companies that focus survive and thrive. The ones that try to do everything disappear. Macy’s is proving that focus works, and their results speak for themselves.
