Walgreens announced yesterday that they will close 200 US stores. A company that was founded 118 years ago. But Walgreens is not alone. About 12,000 stores are expected to close in the U.S this year.
According to CoStar Group, retailers closed a record 102 million square feet of store space in 2017, but that number was smached in 2018 by closing another 155 million square feet. To sum up; that`s thousands of stores.
So far this year, 29% more stores closings announced than last year, according to Coresight Research. They tracked the 5,864 closings in 2018, which included all Toys R Us stores and hundreds of Kmart and Sears locations.
This year, Sears are planning to close another 21 stores while Kmart will close «only» 5 stores in October. Kmart closed 48 stores earlier this year. That`s nothing compared to Walgreens’ 200 stores. Or Fred`s 442 with another 129 stores.
We have to keep in mind that some of the retailers also are opening new stores while closing locations at the same time. But……
The pain will continue for years to come. According to UBS, if the e-commerce penetration continue to rise up from its 16% level to 25%, about 75,000 stores need to be shuttered within a few years.
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