In August 2016, department store giant Macy's (M) announced that it would close 100 stores (mainly in early 2017) in order to right-size its store base in light of changing retail trends. For a while, that effort seemed to be successful, as comparable store sales returned to growth in late 2017, allowing Macy's to stabilize its profitability.
However, business trends took a turn for the worse beginning in late 2018. Macy's stores in lower-tier malls were particularly hard hit by falling traffic to those retail destinations. Macy's management spent more than a year