List of Retail Store Closings in US

Wow - that is a very long list.

Thanks Terri, it is a long list to say the least. This, though, is just the US and only the begining of the fallout; scarey thought to think about.

my picture is a picture of the disney store in chicago. are they going to close this one? i can't imagine this... and i had no idea that so many retail stores are going to get closed in the US. i hope that it won't happen in Germany.

fabi_k has contributed a photo to this story.

Really?  Interesting.  Because every Hollywood Video I know of in my immediate vicinity (4 of them) have closed down in the past 12 months.

It's so sad and disappointing to see so many of these great stores close. 

Please note your article is inaccurate. I found the following information on Movie Gallery's web site:

It has recently come to our attention that there is information circulating the Internet regarding Movie Gallery and Hollywood Video store closures, which would have implications regarding gift card redemption. We would like to inform you that this information is not accurate. At this time there are no plans in place to close any of our Movie Gallery or Hollywood Video retail locations.

We appreciate your loyalty and look forward to serving you in our stores.

Sincerely,
Sherif Mityas
Chief Operating Officer and President, Retail Operations
Movie Gallery, Inc.

As a retail real estate developer I was privy to what can only be described as the wild west of unrestrained retail expansion over the period of the last 5 years.

The modern Retailers were selling the American Public their goods at an unmatched rate.  The only problem was the money that we were using to buy their products was borrowed money either from a credit card or even more prevelant the equity line of credit in out ever appreciating houses.  Once the housing market started to display its soft underbelly it was only a matter of time before the retail sector would follow.  Many of the stores that are closing are stores that were opened in the last 5 years to accomodate the sprawling suburubs of Americas most populated cities.  The stores were opened on projections that the Retailers would soon realize could never be met.  The amount of people that they had anticipated to serve theses green locations never trully materialized, the crashing housing sector left us feeling not so wealthy as we had over the past half decade.  Suddenly we saw the prudence in only purchasing one 65" inch flat screen LCD television, instead of one for each room.

The Retailers, like most of us, financial sector included thought the party would go on forever.  Much like the "New Economy" of the late 90's.  I cant help but be remided of the all too simple but accurate cliche "If it seems to good to be true, then it probobly is."   The Reatailers like so many others bet on the come and got burned.  These store closings represent nothing more than the systemic consequenses of their flawed projections, strategies and assumptions.

The good retailers will survive.  They always do.  The ones that opened up in Suburban Las Vegas becuase of the perceived never ending supply of money and people will be hurt and stores will close. 

We will all walk away from this having learned a collective lesson in prudence.  Until the next time when once again we are in a roaring economic cycle and the lessons of 2008 will be nothing more than a distant memory.

PS. There is no spell check on this thing so if my horrific spelling offends any of you then I offer my sincerest of apologies now.

Blaming Walmart? You should be thankful Walmarts is not on this list.

The reason is the Multinational Global conglomerant buying up or taking over businesses and banks in every country and they are just now hitting America! They are also after the water and utilities. Bush has already agreed and signed paperwork for Canada and Mexico to be without borders to America with a corridor from Mexico straight through to Canada...smack dab through the middle of Texas.

I agree...WAKE UP!

Walmarts didn't put anyone out of business. There are or were many stores the smaller companies could and did sell their jacked up priced products through and the fact is that unless people had more money than brains they chose to shop at Walmartd because of the better prices since the gas prices soared and the costs of the same products at other LARGE chains were way out of line.What ever happened to common sense anyway? Can't people see past their noses these days or does everyone believe what a few people say like mindless zombies.

The working class people that need to do more than choose between eating and rent love Walmarts and depend upon them to help meet the numerous needs of families. When the economy completely collapses and you are scraping your dollars together to shop for yourself and those that depend upon you...I take it you will still look for the high cost stores for the same products or maybe just maybe you will actually appreciate Walmarts and be thankful they held a standard!

Where is Value City?

Sad to say that this list will only continue to grow. 

With the advent of Internet shopping and mostly tax free, ship free deals, who can blame the buyer from home buying their products. They save rising fuel prices, long lines, obnoxious clerks and clerks who have no clue as to what the products are even used for.

I, for one, use the Internet for all my shopping except for certain food items and I have saved thousands of dollars in taxes and shipping fees. If I need help on choosing the right products, the Internet solves that problem for me with ePinions and countless other sites who basically choose the right product for me the first time around.

Some stores needs to close since they sell cheap things from India, Pakistan, China countries who exploit child labor, using lead in toys, melamine in chocolates and milk, or sending us stuff that do not last long, clothes that we can't keep till the next season.

 Others can't get bank loans but this has been going on in the last years, malls in my town are almost empty even on the weekends  and the government did not help them. Instead sent more jobs abroad. What they are going to do with so many GM, Chrisler, Ford cars at the dealerships? Huge chains of eletronic and clothing are filling for Chapter 11 this month and in January the situation will be worst; how about the jobs we need? One in 10 Floridians is now on food stamps, using the crowded public hospitals, leaving pets behind since they can't feed them,  hundreds of foreclosures, just read www.realtytrac.com and www.foreclosures.com.

But is sad that Macy's has to close, my favorite store...  But  do we really NEED so many businesses selling the SAME type of product made abroad while Americans are losing everything they have, even their hope?? Quite scary, folks, I hope the next President give us the right answers...

Walmart sells junk!  Go and look at the labels of many of the foods they sell.  They are full of preservatives. Walmart is also famous for mistreating workers.  If you REALLY think you are finding the best price and VALUE (will you have to buy another one in 6 mos. because its made of cheap plastic that will crack?) they you obviously have not shopped around.  Target sells many of the household cleaning and paper items for slightly less and have much classier and quality housewares and decor.  As for clothes, you can find much better quality and better fitting clothes if you just look for a sale and department stores.  They routinely put name brand clothing up on sale for 75% off at the end of season, and if you are smart, you will shop for the next season (yes America, plan that far ahead!) you will find some great deals on clothes you can wear for the next four or five years.  Don't forget about the deals at discount places like Stein Mart, Ross, TJ Maxx and Burlington coat factory.  They offer amazing deals fashion for you and your home at affordable prices.  Are you one of the drones that frequent the walmart?  That place in your neighborhood that has become home to drug deals and has an artery clogging Wendys of McDonalds built right in.  Also, when was the last time you were offered service at walmart?  There are better ways to save by shopping at stores with ethics towards customer service and employees.  Wake up America and stop being lazy, shop smarter!

Most Probable Scenario:

We now enter the elbow of the curve for online retail, where the slope heads up at an exponential rate.  Offline retail goes down at the exact same rate.  The same conglomerates that own commercial retail also own apartment buildings and office space, and are forced to sell all to meet loan demands on the retail space.  Real estate suffers across the board, taking house prices to BELOW their pre-bubble rates.  The Fed continues to try to prop up the sinking Titanic instead of trying to save its passengers (us).  The Titanic sinks anyway, and we all go down with it.  The U.S. defaults on its eventual $15 Trillion of debt, and the dollar gets crushed, along with all dollar-denominated assets.

Solution:

You can keep your asses here, but get at least 50% of your assets out of the U.S. during the spring, when the Fed's last push to float the economy gives the dumbest people their last feeling of hope.  At that time, sell them your crap real estate and any other assets they'll buy.  Invest overseas wherever people understand that SCIENCE and ENGINEERING are the next phase of evolution.  Wait ten years until America figures that out, PAYS its kids to learn math and science, and generates a new batch of engineers that can actually compete globally.  At that time, move your assets back into the U.S. and ride the next lift up.

Epilogue:

The only reason the stock market stayed up during the past month, and rose on the last two days of the year, was because the Fed and Treasury knew that if they let the market fall to 6000-7000, where it will eventually go anyway, that investors would sell and lock in their losses, thereby diminishing capital gains taxes for years to come.  The Treasury would have lost hundreds of billions of dollars in future tax revenue had they allowed that, so instead they did what we would have done in their position, they floated the market until the clock ticked 2009.  They may float it until the 20th (Barack's inauguration) on the misguided hope that people will buy in one last time for one last bubble, but I doubt it will work.  If you haven't gotten out of the market yet, you'd better soon, or you will lose everything.

You have just comfirm what a lot of us Canadians know - the U.S. has very LITTLE KNOWLEDGE about Canada!  The problems in the economy has not a whole lot to do with the North American Free Trade Agreement. The reason for this is LABOUR IS CHEAPPER in Mexico.   One of the biggest problems is the YOU OWE ME ADDITUDE and we have the BEST and now you are paying for it.  The amount of debit that each of you have is unbelieveable - I have to have bigger and bettter than my neighbour!  Perhaps if we all get back to basics and enjoy what we can afford to have and not the extravigance and have pay rates that are with in a healthy range - NO athele or movie star, etc. are worth what they are being paid.  It is sad that they have been put on such a high petistal - only to say that we have the best and are the best.  Money and material things don't really show who you really are - only your actions do.  So may be with President Obama, he will help us all get back to basics and get off our high horses and learn something new about ourselves.  Its going to be a rough ride to get on the right trail. GOOD LUCK to us all!

Hello everyone,

This is just a warning to you all, coming from an Office Depot manager:

Office Depot stores are loosing business everyday, our customer service
is no where to be found, and nothing is improving on the sales side.
Office Depot offers tech services that are fraudulent; they charge fees for new computers anti-virus installs for $99.99, when a customer could purchase the software for $29.99.

I am leaving the company, so this is just an inside tip!

Guess what....I plan to continue to shop at WAL-MART!!!  Great prices.  If I don't go to WAL-MART, I shop on-line....usually no taxes, no lines, comparison on-line is easy, save money on gas, no rude people to deal with....the list goes on.

Long in deed!

I like documenting signs and spending some time in New York I of course had to take a couple of shots of the worldwide famous Macy's. Though I never went inside... to much stuff to look at.

baskrud has contributed a photo to this story.

Wow!  That's a whole lotta stores.  I wonder if some of it has to do with people shopping online?

Yes, this is, indeed a long list and it is a reflection of a troubled economy. However, the timing of this article and its statement that these stores are closing this year implies that all these stores are closing because of the current financial crisis. A brief investigation shows that many of these closings started in 2007; Bombay, Pep Boys and KB Toys are just three examples. Many others announced the closings very early this year.

Furthermore:

--Libby Lu is closing because Saks (the parent company) closed the division that operated Libby Lu and is trying to focus on core stores.

--Pier 1 has been struggling for years.

--CompUSA, declining for a decade as it faced competition from the likes of BestBuy and other, began shedding stores in early 2007--and sold some of its business to companies like TigerDirect.

--Home Depot & Lowes are closing stores but also opening some. The point here is they're not just shutting down, they're streamlining.

Although such closings are not good news, they don't show the whole story. We must report the whole story or wind up contributing excessive amounts of fear in already uncertain and confusing times.

Why do you have Circuit City closing all of its stores when the link does not back that up?

"Circuit City filed for bankruptcy this year and will close all of its stores."

thanks all for your comments. The purpose of this piece was not to directly insinuate that all of these store closures occurred as an immediate or direct result of the financial fallout. Indeed, many of these closures began taking place some time ago - the point is that the sagging retail sector has been exacerbated by the current economic turnoil.

soon we will be riding spike covered motorcycles over destroyed land battling over scraps of food and gas.

Do you think bush will care, isn't this on him?

Just as long as everyone supports their local  family owned retailers and restaurants the community will survive.....

I heard that Rent A Center stores were closing too. Is this true?

How about correcting this to indicate the CircuitCity is closing some stores?  Dont you think internet rumors help to drive people away from companies like CircuitCity who are simply closing some stores?

Probably be smart to edit your piece to give correct information!

Agreed,we have found spending $40 on a meal in local restaurant much more satisfying in helping them as well as some local restaurants that were so appreciative of the sale that we were treated like royalty! Not to mention that some local restaurants have so few customers that seating is immediate and there is no waiting for the service!