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All four companies reported its fourth quarter results this week during the critical holiday period, with three of them (Gap, JCPenney and Victoria’s Secret) reporting declining in same-store sales, while Foot Locker reported growth that more than doubled expectations.
Still, despite the good news. Foot Locker announced Friday that it plans to close around 165 stores across the country, during its investor call.
That comes less than 24 hours after Gap announced it would close 230 of its namesake stores over the course of the next two years after the brand’s same-store sales fell 7 percent during the holiday quarter. It also announced that it will separate its sister company Old Navy into its own publicly-traded company and create a new firm to house its remaining brands.
To top that off, earlier that day on Thursday, JCPenney announced it too will shutter 18 of its department stores this year, including the three it already announced in January.
Additionally, it said it plans to close nine of its home and furnitiure stores to coincide with its previous announcement to discontinue selling major applicances and furniture at all of its stores by the end of February.
However, Bob Phibbs, CEO of New York-based consultancy the Retail Doctor thinks JCPenney will be forced to announce more closures down the road.
“It is mind boggling that JC Penney still thinks they have time when the clock has run out and there’s no real plan. Closing 18 stores is barely a drop in the bucket of JC Penney’s more than 850 stores. If this was a big, bold effort to reinvigorate the brand, they would have announced they were closing hundreds of stores and investing in an outstanding experience at their other locations,“ Phibbs told FOX Business.
He added that JCPenney "still desperately” needs an inspiring vision for its brand as more and more customers head to Target, Walmart and Amazon.
https://www.fox5ny.com/news/gap-jcpenney-victoria-s-secret-foot-locker-465-store-closures-in-48-hours
You can’t blame America’s teenagers for no longer congregating at the mall like generations past: There aren’t all that many stores left.
In the last 48 hours alone, several shopping-center staples unveiled plans to trim their footprints across the U.S. Gap Inc. said it would slash the store count of its struggling namesake brand by 230 locations over the next two years, just hours after J.C. Penney Co. confirmed it would shutter 18 department stores.
That news came on the heels of L Brands Inc.’s decision to close 53 Victoria’s Secrets in North America this year. And it’s not just apparel: Tesla Inc., whose galleries are often inside shopping centers, just said it’s moving all its sales online.
These moves come on top of all of the chains that have already announced they’re closing down or reducing their footprints due to bankruptcy. This includes Payless Inc., which is abandoning 2,500 stores, Things Remembered, which is closing most of its 400 stores and selling the rest, while mall favorite Brookstone Inc. slims down operations and Sears continues to shutter locations.
Taken as a whole, many of today’s shopping centers are becoming little more than an assemblage of fast-fashion retailers, Apple stores and food courts.
See Also: Bad Victoria’s Secret Christmas Means More Store Closings Ahead
“You hear so much about shopping centers are dying. There definitely needs to be attrition, and there’s too many in the U.S.,” Michael Guerin, senior vice president of leasing at mall-owner Macerich Co., said in an interview earlier this year. The mall “just needs to evolve.”
http://fortune.com/2019/03/01/malls-take-48-hour-beating/
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