Even in the best of times, retail is a challenging business.
Although the industry began 2024 with a better than expected financial performance,, several retailers started the first six months with plans to shrink their physical store footprints. Other chains shuttered all their locations as part of bankruptcies.
Foot Locker reiterated its plans to close about 400 mall-based stores within the next two years, and Best Buy, which closed 24 stores last year, said it plans to close up to 15 more this year. Additionally, Walgreens said that it will close around 1,200 stores in the next three years and in mid-December GameStop announced it was eyeing more store closures than in previous years.
UBS analysts forecast that about 45,000 retail stores might close in the coming years. The report found that the sectors with the most urgent need are apparel and accessories, consumer electronics and home furnishings. However, due in part to the fact that stores are increasingly serving as fulfillment centers for same or next-day pickup or delivery, the industry is far from morphing into a post-store era, UBS said.
“Essentially, our thesis is that retail is experiencing a biological evolution, similar to survival of the fittest,” UBS analysts, led by Michael Lasser, said in the report. “Thus, retailers like Walmart, Target, Costco, Home Depot and other large, leading retailers stand to gain from this natural selection,” UBS said.
The reality that only strong and savvy retailers survive and thrive is a realization that’s as old as the business itself, Nick Egelnanian, founder and president of SiteWorks, told Retail Dive in an interview.
“Retail is a very difficult business,” Egelnanian said. “It requires two things that are very difficult to navigate together: efficiency and consistency. And at the same time as you’re trying to be efficient and consistent, you have competition all the time that’s eroding existing retailers.”
Egelanian said retailers that close stores are typically affected by one of three issues.
“You have the ones that are legacy problems, like Macy’s. You have the ones that are just operational problems, like Family Dollar. And then you have the ones that just for one reason or another, make retailing mistakes, and if they’re leveraged — and they tend to be leveraged — if they’re owned by private equity, they get in trouble really fast.”
Below, in no particular order, are five retailers that have announced plans to close stores in 2024 or in the coming years, along with what they’ve said about the changes to their brick and mortar footprints:
Macy’s
Shortly after taking over as CEO early this year, CEO Tony Spring said the company would push forward with closing 150 Macy’s stores in the next three years. Those locations, he said, delivered less than 10% of sales but comprised 25% of the banner’s square footage. Spring said at the time the retailer had “too many locations that were built for a different era.” In December, the company said it now expects to shutter around 65 stores this year, up from the 55 it estimated earlier.
Macy’s is “part of a multi-decade decline of a particular type of retail,” said Egelnanian, who added that the outlook for the retailer isn’t good. He says it’s more likely than not Macy’s won’t survive. If it does, “it will survive as a much smaller version of itself and a much changed version of itself.”
As a full-line department store, Egelnanian said Macy’s is at a disadvantage because “their purpose has gone away. … There’s no reason for a full line department store today,” Egelnanian said. “So all that’s left is fashion department stores, and Macy’s has not done a good job of transforming itself into a fashion department store, so that’s why I don’t expect them to survive.”
Egelnanian said with improved merchandising, the future of Macy’s might include a 200-store chain. As of December, the company operated 503 namesake stores, including its small-format locations, and 735 locations overall under several banners, including Bloomingdale’s and Bluemercury.
Family Dollar
In March, Family Dollar parent Dollar Tree Inc. said it planned to shutter about 600 Family Dollar stores this year and an additional 370 in the coming years as leases end. The company also plans to close 30 of its namesake discount stores — about 1,000 locations overall. Then in June, the company said it was exploring strategic alternatives for the Family Dollar banner that could include a spinoff or sale.
Dollar Tree acquired Family Dollar in 2015. But CEO Rick Drieling said because each banner is on a different trajectory — growth at Dollar Tree and transformation at Family Dollar — the company thought it was prudent to identify and explore separate paths for the businesses.
In a Dec. 4 earnings announcement, the company said it had closed about 670 stores identified under its previously announced plan with expectations to close an additional 25 locations during the remainder of its 2024 fiscal year. In its latest quarter, the company ended with 8,868 Dollar Tree locations and 7,722 Family Dollar locations, for a total of 16,590 stores.
Big Lots
Big Lots began the summer by issuing a going concern notice in early June. About two months later, the retailer worked out amended credit and loan terms that allowed it to close up to 315 stores. The company’s previous terms allowed it to close up to 150 underperforming locations. Those steps weren’t enough, however, and the company filed for Chapter 11 in September. At that time, it said it operated about 1,300 stores.
The company entered bankruptcy with a stalking horse agreement on the table with investment firm Nexus Capital Management, which plans to acquire the retailer for $620 million. After filing for Chapter 11, Big Lots told the court that it wanted to close over 100 more stores.
Big Lots received court approval in November to sell itself to Nexus Capital Management. But in late December, Big Lots said the agreement fell through and it would initiate going out of business sales at all stores while it worked in the background to strike a new deal.
Egelanian said Big Lots’ biggest mistake leading up to Chapter 11 was that the retailer overexpanded. While most stores are profitable, CEO Bruce Thorn previously said that bankruptcy would enable the company to refocus its footprint.
Express
Mall-based apparel retailer Express struggled to regain its footing after the pandemic hit. After years of unsteady performance, the company filed for Chapter 11 in April and planned to close all of its UpWest stores and 95 of its namesake stores.
In June, the bankruptcy court OK’d a deal where Phoenix Retail, a newly formed joint venture comprising mall owners Simon Property Group, Brookfield Properties, Centennial and brand equity and management firm WHP Global, to buy most of the company’s assets for $174 million.
At the time of its bankruptcy filing, the company said it operated about 500 stores under the Express banner, nearly 60 Bonobos stores and about 10 UpWest stores. Today, the company operates 266 Express stores in the U.S. according to its website. Egelanian said what happened to Express is partly due to the trend that the ecosystem of mostly mall-based stores that don’t sell high-end specialty goods “is in the process of failing.”
Salt Life
One of the most recent waves of store closures caught specialty retailer Salt Life. The beach-focused active apparel brand was sold through a court-supervised bankruptcy auction in September to Iconic International, a brand management entity, and Hilco. The move followed Salt Life parent company Delta Apparel’s Chapter 11 in June.
Established in 2003, Delta began experiencing financial difficulties that led the company to scale back its operations, and that move, in turn, resulted in declining liquidity for the company. Salt Life said in September it would begin closing sales at its 28 brick and mortar stores. At the time, the company said Salt Life merchandise would continue to be offered through e-commerce and wholesale channels. That same month, Delta subsequently filed for Chapter 11 with plans to liquidate. In December, Delta said on its website that it “has closed for business and is no longer accepting orders.”
Although the stores are closing, Salt Life merchandise will continue to be available through wholesale and e-commerce.
