The backbone of the American or any economy is the simple act of the fair exchange of legal tender currency for goods and/or services, and the more this can occur, with more parties able to be involved often on both sides of that exchange, the better it is for the economy on the micro and macro scales.
When considered in a modern, mass-production context, another word for that exchange is “retail.”
Retail is an essential linkage in the growth processes of any economy, for it distributes goods to a wanting public while providing jobs and entrepreneurship opportunities to any within its vortex.
I’m fascinated by stories like the late great Ingvar Kamprad (fortune.com/2018/01/28/ingvar-kamprad-ikea-founder-dies), who turned a childhood venture into an international brand called Ikea. Also, Barry Beck and Marla Beck (fortune.com/2017/10/04/macys-bluemercury/) created a new way to purchase cosmetics in stores and has grown from one to almost 200 in 20 years - all 20 of those years with the Internet making such an astronomical rise seemingly impossible.
Stories like these come from the Retail section of Fortune Magazine. For more like those bookmark the tag pages fortune.com/tag/retail-sales, fortune.com/tag/retailers, fortune.com/tag/fashion-retail, fortune.com/section/retail and fortune.com/category/retail.
