Uber Eats starts retail returns; Walgreens properties hit market; Manufacturing grows in East Coast areas

In its efforts to streamline shopping, technology company Uber Eats has launched a return feature for some retail products, excluding food, through its popular delivery app.

Launched Friday, the feature allows customers to send back eligible items purchased via the app using a courier with a few taps, leaving the unwanted items on their doorstep. From there, Uber Eats calculates a return fee based on the time and distance a return courier must travel, and it issues an “instant refund” once the courier picks up the item.

In short, it’s another way for shoppers to return unwanted purchases without having to leave their house or visit a store, and the fee is “a small price for never having to find parking at the mall again,” Uber Eats said in a statement.

So far, Uber Eats will only return purchases valued at $20 or more. It's also only available for purchases from select stores such as Best Buy, Dick's Sporting Goods, Pet Food Express, Pacsun and Petco, although Uber Eats says it plans to increase its retail partners.

The new feature is also an evolution of Uber’s original package return launch in 2023. Run through Uber Connect, that initiative gave users in certain cities the option to have a courier pick up a return package and drop it off at the post office, UPS or FedEx for a flat $5 fee.

Looking to deploy the strategy it used to offload former Rite Aid properties, advisory firm A&G Real Estate Partners listed 78 Walgreens properties for direct lease, sublease or sale, according to an announcement from the New York-based company.

Located in “high-traffic shopping corridors,” according to A&G, the available Walgreens properties encompass 60 leaseholds, 16 fee-owned freestanding stores or land parcels, one fee-owned medical space and one fee-owned undeveloped warehouse site. The properties are spread across 27 states and Puerto Rico, and A&G offered to negotiate with landlords directly if interested tenants would like to avoid a sublease.

"Operators in the drugstore sector are in the process of right-sizing their portfolios in response to a shift in business model fundamentals and consumer trends," said Emilio Amendola, co-president of A&G. "As a result, these available locations create strong opportunities for expanding retail chains."

The move comes after private equity firm Sycamore Partners purchased the pharmacy chain’s parent company, Walgreens Boots Alliance, in August. That purchase included 2.9 million square feet of Walgreens properties across 42 states and Puerto Rico.

A&G pointed toward a similar strategy it used to market leases from pharmacy chain Rite Aid — which emerged from Chapter 11 in 2024 — as a success story, noting that it offloaded leases to retailers including Dollar Tree and Ace Hardware, and that it sold 50 fee-owned Rite Aid properties to investors.

Manufacturing activity on the central East Coast grew between March and April even as employment figures declined, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.

The index for general activity shot up to 26.7 in April, up nearly 10 points from 18.1 in March. The future general business activity index rose a more conservative 0.8 points to 40.8 in April, with 56.5% of firms expecting a rise in manufacturing business activity, while 15.7% forecast a decrease. That marked the second straight month that both the general and future indexes rose, according to the Philadelphia Fed. The branch publishes the survey each month, asking manufacturing executives in Delaware, southern New Jersey and Pennsylvania about fluctuations in business activity.

Of the firms polled, about 33% said they saw general activity increases, with 62% noting unchanged conditions and 6% seeing declines. New orders also rose in April, with almost 41% of firms saying they experienced an increase, up from 30% in March.

The manufacturing employment index did contract, however, falling six points to negative 5.1. Although 70% of manufacturing firms polled said their employment levels were unchanged between March and April, the 15% reporting contractions surpassed the 10% that saw increasing employment levels.