Costco Wholesale Corporation Reports December Sales Results

REI Co-op announced it is pursuing a sale of its newly completed corporate campus in the Spring District neighborhood of Bellevue, Washington with the intention of shifting to a less centralized approach to its headquarters presence in the Seattle area. Rather than a single location, REI’s “headquarters” would span multiple locations across the region, and the company will lean into remote working as an engrained, supported, and normalized model for headquarters employees, offering flexibility for more employees to live and work outside of the Puget Sound region and shrinking the co-op’s carbon footprint.

Simon & Schuster was the only one of the country’s four largest trade publishers to show an improved profit margin in the first half of 2023 compared to last year. In reporting Penguin Random House’s first-half results last week, where sales rose 9.5% but profits were up less than 1%, interim global CEO Nihar Malaviya told employees the small earnings increase “should come as no surprise, as industry inflationary cost pressures and increased costs across our businesses have continued to impact us.” HarperCollins CEO Brian Murray noted earlier that in addition to higher manufacturing, freight, and distribution costs, the industry has faced macroeconomic headwinds that he hasn’t seen since the Great Recession of 2008. Profits fell 19.7% at Lagardère Publishing despite a 2.5% increase in six-month sales. In addition to inflationary pressures, Lagardère cited increased costs incurred on “transformation projects in France” as the reason for the earnings decline.

Who doesn’t feel a rush of joy when they open a handwritten card or letter received in the mail? Many of us rediscovered the simple, yet powerful pleasures of keeping in touch with pen, paper and a postage stamp during the pandemic. Later this month, everyone across America – and around the globe – is invited to send a card, deliver a smile and together create a much-needed wave of happiness during Thinking of You Week. Celebrated September 20 to 26, Thinking of You Week is an international movement to celebrate the joy of sending and receiving hand-written notes and greeting cards. Launched in the United Kingdom in 2014, the celebration was brought to the U.S. by the Greeting Card Association in 2018.