A few blocks from my home sits a small Japanese grocery store that has been in the neighborhood for years. Its the kind of place that once felt irreplaceablecarefully sourced ingredients, shelves stocked with items I couldnt find in mainstream supermarkets, and an owner who knows her regulars.
But much as I love this store, it has been in steady decline for a few years now. Whole Foods opened up nearby and it now stocks all the basicsmiso paste, kombu, dashi packets, norithat I, or anyone else, could want for weeknight Japanese cooking. Suddenly, the extra trip to the specialty shop felt unnecessary most of the time. The big chain became good enough, and in a world where convenience dictates behavior, good enough tends to win.
What happened to that shop isnt really about Japanese groceries. The same story is playing out across sectors as the mass market parts of many businesses are being swallowed up by bigger players. If a small business competes on anything that a large company can copy and make money from, you can bet your bottom dollar that a large company will eventually start providing those goods or services. And thanks to globalized supply, online storefronts, and the ever-increasing speed of information flows about trends and consumer needs, that copying can happen almost instantly.
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Thats why many small businesses need to rethink their business models. Market segments that once seemed niche are quickly becoming part of the mass market. And small businesses have never been able to compete in broad market sectors on the provision of products or services alone. In todays environment, the only defensible strategy is to go narrowmuch narrower than often feels comfortable.
Taking this path can be particularly difficult because when times are tough. The instinct of a small business owner is normally to try harder at everything: better service, longer hours, more products, lower prices. But thats a trap. When you compete broadly against players with structural advantages, youre fighting a war of attrition you cannot win. So, instead of trying to beat big companies at their game, SMEs should play a different game altogether, a game they have advantages that the big beasts cant replicate.
The three shifts that define survival
Small businesses that want to thrive in the future need to make three fundamental shifts in how they operate.
1. From Generalist to Specialist: The Power of Expertise
When business gets tough, owners often broaden the offeringthey add more products and try to serve more customer types to become all things to all people. This is understandable but counterproductive. Instead, the path to survival runs through radical specialization: owning a territory so narrow and deep that competition becomes nearly irrelevant.
The point is that while generalist businesses compete with everyone, specialists compete with almost no one. An accounting firm serving all small businesses faces constant price pressures from the commoditization of services in their sector. The same firm focusing exclusively on assisting craft breweries as they navigate excise tax regulations, inter-state distribution challenges, equipment depreciation schedules, and seasonal cash flow patterns can add value in ways that a large firm selling generalized services never could. They are not competing on price anymorethey are competing on irreplaceable expertise.This matters now more than ever because AI and automation are rapidly commoditizing general knowledge. ChatGPT can generate useful general marketing advice. But it cannot replicate 15 years of navigating the specific regulatory environment of biotech fundraising or identifying which Japanese suppliers source sustainably today. Only the deepest moats can be defended when breadth can be automated.
2. From Customers to Community: Building Tribal Loyalty
In an age in which more and more interactions are becoming digital and transactional, the hunger for genuine connection intensifies. People will pay premiums and make extra trips for businesses that make them feel they belong to somethingbusiness that dont just sell products but that create communities.
Radical specialization creates the conditions for community, because the people who walk through the door arent just customers anymore. They are people who share something in common: a deep focus on and interest in a specific activity, product, or type of knowledge. This is the foundation on which small businesses can build their tribes.
For example, instead of simply selling products, the Japanese grocery store in my neighborhood could cultivate a community of serious home cooks who care about authentic Japanese cuisine. It could organize monthly sake tastings, knife skills workshops, cooking demonstrationsanything that helps create a community of people who come to the store because its their store, a place where people like them hang out and shop. In this way, the business becomes not just a vendor but the center of a shared identity.
3. From Corporate Speak to Real Humanity: The Power of Authenticity
Small businesses often try to sound like big companies. The irony is that this erases the one advantage small businesses will always have over their larger competitorsthe ability to be distinctively, recognizably human.
Big companies have no choice but to be bland, because when a business serves millions of customers with diverse values and preferences, it cannot afford to be polarizing. Every piece of marketing content, branding, and presentation is smoothed into a form that is maximally inoffensive, and which almost inevitably tends to fade into forgettable corporate messaging. But small businesses that specialize do not face this constraint. They can afford to have opinions, quirks, and personality. And in a world where AI can generate perfectly polished content and every brand sounds the same, being recognizably yourself becomes a competitive advantage that cannot be replicated.
This isnt just about being quirky for its own sake. An authentic voice does three thins that corporate polish cannot. First, it makes expertise tangiblestrong opinions come from deep knowledge, and customers can sense the difference between an earned perspective and generic advice. Second, it attracts the right people while repelling everyone else, which is exactly what a specialized business needs. Third, it creates connection before transaction. When someone has been following the grocery store owners social media posts for months, seeing her passion for real ingredients and deep knowledge of the products she sells, the first visit feels less like shopping and more like finally meeting someone they already know.
Three things to do right now
Here are three concrete steps you can take immediately as a small business owner to help your business survive into 2026 and beyond.
1. Map your territory
Pick your top 10 customers and write down what they have in common. What do they care about that others dont? What expertise do they value that general competitors cant provide?
This exercise reveals where the business already has traction with a specific groupthe foundation for radical specialization. Most small businesses discover theyre already serving a niche without realizing it. The work is recognizing it and leaning into it fully rather than hedging with broader offerings.
2. Choose one thing to stop doing
Radical specialization requires subtraction. This week, identify one product line, service offering, or customer segment that pulls the business away from its core expertise.
Then stop serving it.
This can feel terrifying. The instinct is to worry about lost revenue. But the store that stops trying to compete as a general grocer and embraces a new identity as a specialty shop for serious home cooks isnt limiting itselfits claiming territory it can actually defend.
3. Show up as a human being
Pick one platformInstagram, LinkedIn, a blog, whatever feels naturaland commit to posting three times this week as an actual person with actual opinions.
The goal isnt to go viral or be provocative for its own sake. It is to demonstrate that there is a real human with real expertise and real opinions behind the businesssomeone worth paying attention to and someone eventually worth paying to do business with.
This may feel uncomfortable at first. That discomfort is a good sign. If it feels too polished and safe, its not quite working yet.
The path forward
That Japanese grocery store near my house is still therefor now. But if it wants to survive in the long term, it will need to make choices that feel counterintuitive: going narrower instead of broader, becoming smaller instead of bigger.
In a world in which large companies are serving broader and broader markets, small businesses need to lean into becoming specialists. This gives them not just something feasible to defend but the tools they will need to fight for their territory.
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A shooting last weekend at a children’s birthday party in California that left four dead was the 17th mass killing this year the lowest number recorded since 2006, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University.Experts warn that the drop doesn’t necessarily mean safer days are here to stay and that it could simply represent a return to average levels.“Sir Isaac Newton never studied crime, but he says ‘What goes up must come down,'” said James Alan Fox, a criminologist at Northeastern University. The current drop in numbers is more likely what statisticians call a “regression to the mean,” he said, representing a return to more average crime levels after an unusual spike in mass killings in 2018 and 2019.“Will 2026 see a decline?” Fox said. “I wouldn’t bet on it. What goes down must also go back up.”The mass killings defined as incidents in which four or more people are killed in a 24-hour period, not including the killer are tracked in the database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University. Fox, who manages the database, says mass killings were down about 24% this year compared to 2024, which was also about a 20% drop compared to 2023.Mass killings are rare, and that means the numbers are volatile, said James Densley, a professor of at Metropolitan State University in Minnesota.“Because there’s only a few dozen mass killings in a year, a small change could look like a wave or a collapse,” when really it’s just a return to more typical levels, Densley said. “2025 looks really good in historical context, but we can’t pretend like that means the problem is gone for good.”
Decline in rates of homicide and violent crime might be a factor
But there are some things that might be contributing to the drop, Densley said, including an overall decline in homicide and violent crime rates, which peaked during the COVID-19 pandemic. Improvements in the immediate response to mass shootings and other mass casualty incidents could also be playing a part, he said.“We had the horrible Annunciation School shooting here in Minnesota back in August, and that case wouldn’t even fit the mass killing definition because there were only two people killed but over 20 injured,” Densley said. “But I happen to know from the response on the ground here, that the reason only two people were killed is because of the bleeding control and trauma response by the first responders. And it happened on the doorsteps of some of the best children’s hospitals in the country.”Crime is complex, and academics are not great at assessing the reasons behind crime rate changes, said Eric Madfis, a professor of criminal justice at University of Washington-Tacoma.“It’s multicausal. It’s never going to be just one thing. People are still debating why homicide rates went down in the 1990s,” Madfis said. “It is true that gun violence and gun violence deaths are down, but we still have exceedingly high rates and numbers of mass shootings compared to anywhere else in the world.”More states are dedicating funding to school threat assessments, with 22 states mandating the practice in recent years, Madfis said, and that could be preventing some school shootings, though it wouldn’t have an impact on mass killings elsewhere. None of the mass killings recorded in the database so far in 2025 took place in schools, and only one mass killing at a school was recorded in 2024.
Most of those who die in mass killings are shot
About 82% of this year’s mass killings involved a firearm. Since 2006, 3,234 people have died in mass killings and 81% of them were shooting victims.Christopher Carita, a former detective with the Fort Lauderdale Police Department and a senior training specialist with gun safety organization 97Percent, said the Safer Communities Act passed in 2022 included millions of dollars of funding for gun violence protection programs. Some states used the money to create social supports for people at risk of committing violence, and others used it for things like law enforcement and threat assessment programs. That flexibility has been key to reducing gun violence rates, he said.“It’s always been framed as either a ‘gun problem’ or a ‘people problem’ and that’s been very contentious,” Carita said. “I feel like for the first time, we’re looking at gun violence as a ‘both, and’ problem nationally.”Focusing on extreme events like mass killings runs the risk of “missing the forest for the trees,” said Emma Fridel, an assistant professor of criminology at Florida State University. “If you look at the deaths from firearms, both in homicides and suicides, the numbers are staggering. We lose the same number of people every year to gun violence as the number of casualties we experienced in the Korean War. The number one cause of death for children is guns.“Mass killings should be viewed as one part of the issue, rather than the outcome of interest,” she said.
Rebecca Boone, Associated Press
The Prada Group closed the purchase of Milan fashion rival Versace in a $1.375 billion cash deal that puts the fashion house known for its sexy silhouettes under the same roof as Prada’s “ugly chic” aesthetic and Miu Miu’s youth-driven appeal.The highly anticipated deal is expected to relaunch Versace’s fortunes, after middling post-pandemic performance as part of the U.S. luxury group Capri Holdings.Prada said in a one-line statement that the acquisition had been completed after receiving all regulatory clearances. Capri Holdings, which owns Michael Kors and Jimmy Choo, said the money would be used to pay down debt.Donatella Versace welcomed the deal in an Instagram post, which also marked the birthday of the brand’s late founder, her brother, Gianni Versace.“Today is your day and the day Versace joins the Prada family. I am thinking of the smile you would have had on your face,” she wrote in a post that also featured a 1996 photo of Gianni Versace with Miuccia Prada.
Versace’s future
Prada heir Lorenzo Bertelli is set to steer Versace’s next phase as executive chairman, in addition to his roles as group marketing director and sustainability chief.The son of co-creative director Miuccia Prada and longtime Prada Group chairman Patrizio Bertelli has said he doesn’t expect to make any swift executive changes at Versace, although he also noted that the company, which is among the top 10 most recognized brands in the world, has long been underperforming in the market.Prada has underlined that the 47-year-old Versace brand offered “significant untapped growth potential.”The appeal of the deal is that it combines “the minimalist Prada (with) a maximalist Versace,” said Luca Solca, an analyst at Bernstein Group consulting firm, meaning that the brands don’t compete for the same customers.Versace is “long past its heyday,” Solca said. “The challenge and the opportunity is to make it relevant again. . . . They are going to have to invent something which is going to make the brand attractive, desirable, and interesting again.”Versace already has begun a creative relaunch under a new designer, Dario Vitale, who previewed his first collection during Milan Fashion Week in September. He was previously head of design at Miu Miu, but his move to Versace was unrelated to the Prada deal, executives have said.The runway show received mixed reviews, but the collection itselfa colorful, revealing riff on the 1980sgot good feedback from buyers. “I think that this seems to be a promising first step,” Solca said.
Breaking from the past
Capri Holdings paid $2 billion for Versace in 2018, but had been struggling to position the brands’ bold profile in the recent era of “quiet luxury.”Capri Holdings chairman John D. Idol said in a statement that “Prada is the ideal partner to guide this celebrated luxury house into its next era of growth.”Versace represented 20% of Capri Holdings’ 2024 revenue of 5.2 billion euros.Prada said when the deal was announced in April that Versace would represent 13% of the Prada Group’s pro forma revenues, with Miu Miu coming in at 22% and Prada at 64%. The Prada Group, which also includes Church’s footwear, reported a 17% boost in revenues to 5.4 billion euros ($6.3 billion) last year.
Prada’s in-house manufacturing
The Prada Group has already begun preparations to incorporate crosstown rival Versace into its Italian manufacturing system, a point of pride for the group.“Making a bag for one brand or another, the know-how is the same,” Bertelli told reporters last week at the group’s Scandicci leather goods factory, which already makes bags for the Prada and Miu Miu brands and will soon add Versace.Artisans stitched handles onto leather bags, and cut leather with laser machines inside the leather goods factory, where trainees were learning the trade as part of Prada’s 25-year-old academy. It has trained some 570 new artisans in an in-house training program in the Tuscany, Marche, Veneto and Umbria regions of Italy.Last year, Prada hired 70% of the 120 artisans who trained in the academy. The number of trainees rose by 28% to 152 this year.The Prada Group has invested 60 million euros ($69.6 million) in its supply chain this year, including a new leather goods factory near Siena, a new knitwear factory near Perugia, as well as increasing production at its Church’s footwear factory in Britain and expanding another Tuscan factory. That’s on top of 200 million euros ($232 million) in investments from 2019 to 2024.
Colleen Barry, Associated Press
As 2025 winds down, here are some moves to help you finish the year strong financially. Morningstar’s director of personal finance and retirement planning, Christine Benz, discusses strategies.This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Benefits of rebalancing your portfolio
What are the benefits of portfolio rebalancing, and who most needs to do it?
The main benefit of rebalancing is risk reduction. You trim securities that have performed really well, presumably ones with higher valuations today. And you redirect the money into securities where returns have lagged, but valuations might be more attractive. It’s also important to rebalance on an ongoing basis as you get closer to your spending target.As retirement approaches, we need to spend that money, so you want to de-risk your portfolio and build safer asset reserves. Investors age 50 and above really need to take notice of rebalancing. It’s time to take some winnings and build safer assets that you could access if you needed to spend from your portfolio. Moving money into high-quality bonds removes risk and takes advantage of current attractive yields.
Why investors saving for retirement should check their international allocation
What do you recommend for people who are still working and saving for retirement?
They should rebalance as well, but their main consideration should be their U.S. versus non-U.S. exposure. Most investors are underallocated in international stocks. Consider your style diversification as well, paying attention to underperforming areas.Review your retirement contributions, to see if you can boost or even max out your company retirement plan for the year. People over 50 can make catch-up contributions, and there are special catch-up contributions this year for people between 60 and 63. You can contribute to IRAs and HSAs until the tax filing deadline.
How to use RMDs to help with rebalancing
How can people over 73 connect their RMDs with portfolio rebalancing?
Required minimum distributions (RDM) must be taken on time, but they can also help meet your rebalancing. By using appreciated securities to meet your RMD, you de-risk your portfolio, satisfy the IRS’s obligations, and may free up assets to supply your cash flow needs for next year.
Why investors should check their insurance coverage
Is it also a good time to look at your insurance coverage?
Whether you are doing open enrollment for employer-provided health care or for Medicare, it’s important to shop around. Take stock of what has changed in your situation, and in the plans on offer. This is particularly important for employer-provided plans, which change frequently. Married couples often select whichever spouse’s plan looks better and most affordable, but sometimes it’s more cost-effective for each partner to be covered by their own company’s plan.
How qualified charitable contributions can help with RMDs
How can charitable donations connect with RMDs and lessen your portfolio risk?
Investors with highly appreciated holdings in taxable accounts should consider giving appreciated assets directly to charity or sending them to a donor-advised fund. You can disburse from the donor-advised fund to charities over multiple years. Donating removes a highly appreciated asset from your portfolio, which can lessen risk, and removes the tax liability associated with that holding. You won’t owe taxes on donated funds, and you could get a tax deduction.People age 70.5 and older can use the qualified charitable distribution to donate part of an IRA to charity. The amount donated is not taxable to you, and it will satisfy your RMD. If you’re not yet subject to RMDs, it will at least shrink the amount of your IRA that will be subject to RMDs.
This article was provided to the Associated Press by Morningstar. For more personal finance content, go to https://www.morningstar.com/personal-finance
Margaret Giles is a senior editor of content development for Morningstar.Christine Benz is director of personal finance and retirement planning for Morningstar.
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A Checklist for Retirees to Finish This Year
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Margaret Giles and Christine Benz of Morningstar
Costco has sued the U.S. government to ensure it will receive refunds if the Supreme Court rejects President Donald Trump’s bid for sweeping authority to impose tariffs.
In a complaint filed on Friday in the U.S. Court of International Trade in Manhattan, Costco said Trump’s use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose tariffs left it uncertain whether businesses can recoup sums they should not have paid.
The nation’s largest warehouse club operator said U.S. Customs and Border Protection denied its request for more time to make final calculations of tariffs owed, threatening its right to complete refunds even if the Supreme Court rules against Trump.
Customs and Border Protection had no immediate comment. Costco did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Based in Issaquah, Washington, Costco joined dozens of companies suing to safeguard potential refunds. It is also among the largest, with $275.2 billion of revenue in its fiscal year ending August 31.
Other companies that have sued to preserve refunds include Bumble Bee Foods, Ray-Ban eyeglass maker EssilorLuxottica, Kawasaki Motors, Revlon, and Yokohama Tire, court records show.
During oral arguments on November 5, Supreme Court justices from both sides of the political spectrum asked skeptical questions about whether Trump legally used the 1977 emergency powers law to impose tariffs.
The justices took the case on an accelerated basis, but have not said when they will rule.
Costco has taken multiple steps to address tariffs, including by reducing the number of suppliers, and relying more on local sourcing and its in-house Kirkland brand.
Jonathan Stempel, Reuters
To Trina Spear, cofounder and CEO of medical apparel brand Figs, change for the healthcare industry has to start with a focus on healthcare workers.
We believe if you serve the provider, they will be able to better serve the patient, she says. And that drives better outcomes. That drives a better healthcare system.
As part of that focus, Figs gave away hundreds of thousands of scrubs, organized healthcare worker retreats, and donated some $510,000 to healthcare nonprofits in 2024 alone.
Now its expanding that work by launching its own nonprofit, the Awesome Humans Foundation, which will provide financial support, training, and resources to healthcare professionals.
Our mission is to serve those who serve others, so impact has always been ingrained into the center of the company, Spear says. The big vision that weve always had is, How do we make the experience of being a healthcare professional, no matter where you live around the world, the best it can possibly be?
How Figs has helped healthcare workers
Figs has long called its customers (and generally every healthcare worker) awesome humans. And the company has done more than just sell those workers scrubs and lab coats.
For instance, Figs launched a healthcare advisory board focused on policy solutions around pay, mental health, workplace safety, reduced administrative burdens, and more. The Santa Monica-based company wrote checks to healthcare professionals after the Los Angeles fires to help them get food, support local relief efforts, or get medical essentials for their hospitals.
And its donated thousands every yearto nonprofits like the Dr. Lorna Breen Heroes Foundation, which focuses on mental well-being for healthcare workers, and the Student National Medical Association, which provides mentorship and training.
With its own foundation, though, Figs hopes to have an even bigger impact. It also now has the ability to fundraise for that work.
Were going to be able to donate multiples [of Figss annual charitable giving], because well be basically crowdsourcing the world, Spear says. If you care like we care, were going to be able to do big things together.
The nonprofits focus
The Awesome Humans Foundation will have four main focus areas. The first, dubbed Rapid Relief for Awesome Humans, will provide direct financial support to healthcare professionals (who live or study in the U.S. or its territories) who face any sort of monetary hardship.
The way Figs supported L.A.-area healthcare workers after the wildfires would fit into that bucket, for example, but through a nonprofit instead of the company writing checks off its balance sheet.
Next, the foundation will offer Future Icons grants of $10,000 to help cover tuition costs and fees for U.S. healthcare students. Coming out [of school] with a ton of debt is super debilitating and very hard, and how can we relieve that burden? Spear says.
That burden may soon grow for some healthcare workers, too.
The Trump administration recently removed an array of healthcare titlesincluding nursing, physical therapy, and dental hygienefrom the Department of Educations professional graduate degree program list, meaning those degrees now face stricter student loan limits.
The nonprofits third pillar will be its Ubuntu Grant, which will fund other nonprofitsin the U.S. and internationallythat support healthcare workers. (Unbuntu is an African philosophy that has been translated as I am because we are.)
Its fourth piece, called the Healthcare Is Human Award, will reward healthcare leadership and advocacy. For that, anyone can nominate a healthcare professional they see making an impact. (Nominations will be open July 1 to August 31, 2026.)
Figs expects the Awesome Human Foundation to make its first grants shortly after its launch on Giving Tuesday, December 2.
To the company, this nonprofit aims to fill a void it saw in the philanthropy space. There was no organization that was really focused on all healthcare professionals that served all their needs, Spear says. So we had to build it ourselves.
Social media users may love the “6-7” trend, but when it comes to their advice for baby boomers, a number of recent posts from TikTok financial influencers have users recommending that people start collecting their Social Security benefits early, at age 62.
However, this differs from what financial planners typically recommend, which is that people delay their Social Security claim as long as possible to get the maximum monthly benefit at age 70.
Here’s what to know about the online debate.
How does age affect Social Security payments?
Before you do anything, it’s important to understand how Social Security worksand that you contact your financial advisor when making big decisions about your retirement.
That said, how it works is that at full retirement age (FRA), you can claim 100% of your Social Security benefits, which are calculated based on your lifetime earnings. Historically, that age was 65, but it has been gradually increasing to age 67, due to changes in Social Securitys financial structure that Congress enacted in 1983, according to the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization for Americans 50 and older.
So, if you begin benefits before your full retirement age, at say, 62, Social Security reduces your monthly payment by a fraction of a percent for each month you filed early. If you wait till age 70, you can receive your maximum monthly benefit, per the AARP.
What are people saying on TikTok?
Some financial influencers, or finfluencers” on YouTube and TikTok have posted about the issue and recommended that people take the payout starting at 62, and invest that money monthly in the stock marketwhich is the opposite advice of most expert financial planners.
According to the arguments on TikTok, from users such as the Medicare Family, doing this makes sense for some people, namely if you are sick (“and may not live to be 70”); or even “if you are going to live a long time, because you can invest it” in the stock market, which currently has high returns, or with a financial advisor.
What do the experts say?
Many financial advisors feel differently.
“I generally do not recommend that people claim Social Security at 62 unless they seriously need the money or have a shortened life expectancy,” Social Security advisor Mary Beth Franklin tells Fast Company. “For people who are healthy enough and wealthy enough to wait up until age 70 to claim maximum benefits, there is a huge pay offan extra 8% per year, delayed retirement credits for every year they postpone claiming beyond full retirement age (FRA) up to age 70which can also maximize survivor benefits.”
Audrey Guo, assistant professor of economics at Santa Clara University’s Leavey School of Business, adds that beyond the typical life expectancy concerns, the decision to claim Social Security early comes down to a person’s appetite for risk, as it’s essentially a savings vehicle.
“While it’s true you may be able to earn a higher return by taking your monthly payment and investing it in the stock market, this only makes financial sense if you don’t have any other assets in relatively low-yield assets such as savings accounts or bonds,” Guo explains to Fast Company. “Otherwise, you would also want to liquidate and invest those assets into the stock market before claiming Social Security early.”
“Realistically though, most folks probably don’t have (and shouldn’t have) the ability to stomach that much risk,” Guo adds.
What should I make of all this?
Above all, it’s important to remember that listening to financial advice from strangers on the internet is very risky, and it’s best to consult with a trusted financial advisor about your specific situation before making any big decisions about your finances or retirement.
