This report was originally published by Daisy Luther at The Organic Prepper
Every year, it seems like more and more retail outlets are going out of business, resulting in the loss of jobs and local supplies. Last year, hundreds of stores closed, and this year, even more shops are scheduled to shut their doors for good.
The 2018 Death List
This year, in an effort to save their businesses, the following retailers will close hundreds of their stores, according to Fox Business.
- Abercrombie & Fitch: 60 more stores are charted to close
- Aerosoles: Only 4 of their 88 stores are definitely remaining open
- American Apparel: They’ve filed for bankruptcy and all their stores have closed (or will soon)
- BCBG: 118 stores have closed
- Bebe: Bebe is history and all 168 stores have closed
- Bon-Ton: They’ve filed for Chapter 11 and will be closing 48 stores.
- The Children’s Place: They plan to close hundreds of stores by 2020 and are going digital.
- CVS: They closed 70 stores but thousands still remain viable.
- Foot Locker: They’re closing 110 underperforming stores shortly.
- Guess: 60 stores will bite the dust this year.
- Gymboree: A whopping 350 stores will close their doors for good this year
- HHGregg: All 220 stores will be closed this year after the company filed for bankruptcy.
- J. Crew: They’ll be closing 50 stores instead of the original 20 they had announced.
- J.C. Penney: They’ve closed 138 stores and plan to turn all the remaining ones into toy stores.
- The Limited: All 250 retail locations have been closed and they’ve gone digital in an effort to remain in business.
- Macy’s: 7 more stores will soon close and more than 5000 employees will be laid off.
- Michael Kors: They’ll close 125 stores this year.
- Payless: They’ll be closing a whopping 800 stores this year after recently filing for bankruptcy.
- Radio Shack: More than 1000 stores have been shut down this year, leaving them with only 70 stores nationwide.
- Rue 21: They’ll be closing 400 stores this year.
- Sears/Kmart: They’ve closed over 300 locations.
- ToysRUs: They’ve filed for bankruptcy but at this point, have not announced store closures, and have in fact, stated their stores will remain open.
- Wet Seal: This place is history – all 171 stores will soon be closed.
And these are just the people who have announced store closures so far. In an environment hostile to brick and mortar businesses, more are sure to come.
Tens of thousands of jobs will be lost.
Even if you don’t like to shop, this is a sign of economic trouble. The malls that sit empty are a sign of massive unemployment.
Jobs in the retail sector are the most prolific in America, employing 4.3 million workers as salespeople and 3.3 million workers as cashiers. (source) The current store closures mean the end of employment for tens of thousands of workers.
All in all, the collapse of the retail industry could, at some point, put the livelihoods of more than 7 million people in jeopardy. Perhaps the doomsaying economists like Peter Schiff and Dave Kunstler are right when they warn that a Great Depression the likes of the one in the early 1900s is upon us. That means not only massive unemployment but also massive hyperinflation, making it nearly impossible to stay fed.
Let’s add to rising retail unemployment the move to more self-checkout, more AI, and more computerized systems instead of human staff. It’s not too hard to understand why people could soon be dependent on a Universal Basic Income and a return to an almost feudal society.
A Great Depression now would be far worse than the historic one we all look back on.
And if that’s the case, it’s bound to be even worse. Back in 2006, our urban population exceeded our rural population for the first time ever. This means that people will be unlikely to have the space to grow food for self-reliance.
As well, we’ve gotten so far away from the skills of self-reliance that it’s practically a lost art. Our society is one of consumers, not producers, and this means that in a depressed economy, many more people will be at the mercy of government handouts. And let’s face it, in a depression, those handouts, if they happen at all, will be very sparse.
These days, most folks don’t know how to grow food, preserve food, sew, or build. For a list of self-reliant skills and links to places that will help you learn them, go here to my Self-Reliance Manifesto. No matter where you live, some of these skills will be applicable you, and it’s more urgent now than ever to put them into practice. To learn more about living through a societal and economic collapse, check out articles by Jose, who is currently trying to get his family out of Venezuela due to their own crisis. (Here’s one that is really enlightening.)
What do you think?
Is the retail apocalypse a sign of impending financial doom or merely a move toward a more digital society? Will unemployment begin to rise even further?
Please feel free to share any information from this article in part or in full, giving credit to the author and including a link to The Organic Prepper and the following bio.
Daisy Luther is the author of The Pantry Primer: A Prepper’s Guide To Whole Food on a Half Price Budget. Her website, The Organic Prepper, offers information on healthy prepping, including premium nutritional choices, general wellness and non-tech solutions. You can follow Daisy on Facebook and Twitter, and you can email her at [email protected]
What do you think?
Is the retail apocalypse a sign of impending financial doom or merely a move toward a more digital society? Will unemployment begin to rise even further?
I think people are shopping online more. This empowers Amazon and Google and the Delivery companies like FedEx.
Free- Sorry but I can’t agree. The stores aren’t closing because people are buying online…they’re closing because nobody has any money. Grocery stores are closing in record numbers all over the country, not because nobody is buying food, but because the profit margin doesn’t allow for a Return On Investment. People still have to eat, they are just not spending as much as they used to. This scenario will continue to unwind until even the online retailers will be so stretched, that they must shutter as well. This is not too far off either. PREP!!!
Agree!
We have frictional unemployment, that is all. Anyone ready willing and able to work can find a job, despite the perverse incentives against it. Old codgers be damned.
Amen. If people are spending all their money on a roof over their heads and some food in their mouths( not to mention health(?) care, and insurance,( if they have it), and gas to get where they need to go, there isn’t any money for shopping!
People that sell food are doing fine where I am.
They charge way to much. I produce a lot of my own
food, but I haven’t figured out how to make beer
as cheap as Rolling rock or Red hook can.
When I do I’ll probably never go to a store again.
As far as the other stores, most everything I get
is delivered by USPS, FedEx, or UPS.
If that ever goes TU, I’ll figure it out.
I just stopped drinking beer. Problem solved, money saved.
E-commerce sales as a percentage of all retail sales was only 9.10-percent as of Q4 2017.
Meanwhile, credit card debt is the highest it has ever been (that’s right: in all of history).
“Total credit card debt currently amounts to about 962 billion dollars. The average credit card debt per owning household is 14,750 dollars. Approximately 609.8 million credit cards are currently in USA, with credit card users having an average of 3.5 cards each.”
The retail collapse is because people are broke and in debt up to their eyeballs.
You know things are bad when the MSM has stopped reporting on the collapse of retail.
Overall retail sales don’t seem to be down, just where people are shopping is changing.
For all that I’ll ever go in them again; you can add: Dick Heads Sporting Goods. I’ve been buying Guns and ammo since I was 12, now they say no one under 21, up their’s. Back in the late 1960’S. I went onto the hardware store to buy my monthly 2 Boxes of Winchester 22 long Rifle Super X; (72 cents a box, tax inc,) and they refused to give it to me, some new BS. So I called the Chief of Police he said: “Just go to the Western Auto, they’d sell to anyone, so I did. He said some new stupid rule from the feds
Speaking about a “digital society.” Have you seen the latest NETFLIX offering? Hollywood is selling some TV show about crime. Again.
In the trailer they open suitcases filled with cash while the background narration talks about “the future,” and “digital currency,” “untraceable.”
Talk about a propaganda freak show.
Part of the reason so many stores are closing is because of the tax incentives and artificially low interest rates caused huge amounts of overbuilding. America has over 3x the retail space per person as the European Union countries.
Unsustainable government subsidized growth wasting resources has been holding back our country for decades.
Where I live only Belk’s and my Barber shop are the only operating facilities in my Cities Mall.
Penney’s, Gap, Payless,Footlocker, sears, Fast food places closed several years ago.
It is true more people are shopping on line from their homes. But still nothing as walking the mall with the assortment of different shops but they too will be a thing of the past.
Store closings are just a sign of the times. Much worse is just ahead.
Grand Solar Minimum…
Research it.
Have for 10 years.
Read john Casey’s publications regarding that issue and is now preparing accordingly
Most serious quite threat facing preppers today
I have been keeping an eye on that as well. Another resource I enjoy is Ice Age Farmer. There are a few others but since my old laptop died, I have not yet recovered all of my bookmarks. (I have them on the old hard drive. Takes time to get a new machine set up. Side note: WIN 10 is a real freak show but no choice about it.)
Winn Dixie is closing 200 out of 500 grocery stores in the south, lousy store anyway. Apple turnovers have no apple in them, overall prices shocking. Publix prices through the roof also. Unemployment is under 5%, what a crock of BS. If the prices get much higher the food store closures will explode.
If modern Americans as a group learn to garden, grocery stores will be hurting. Of course, this also means that these folks will also learn how to prepare decent meals and forego eating out so often. Hey, even make their own latte! Kids will have to give up junk food or even help pull weeds. Oh! the humanity!! The suffering from sunshine and lack of attention to their devices will know no bounds…!
My granddaughters were 4 or 5 when my son showed them how to tuck seeds in the ground and get flowers. (Grandma got them little gardening gloves and tiny tools.) Don’t know that they are hooked on gardening but they know something about it.
TPTB know its coming apart and have injected liquidity (money from nowhere) repeatedly to temporarily stabilize the system. Each time the intervention provides less stabilization. Their ability to control the timing leads me to believe that they will allow the economy fall to derail the populist anti globalist efforts. All they need to do is not intervene and let one plus one equals two, that which they have been fighting for years to come to pass.
Too much overhead and not a big enough profit margin. I see a return to local mom and pop country stores. Ran by family members and no debt and high overhead. The big wholesalers raised the prices on the mom & pop stores. I knew a mom and pop store who would buy their stock at Wal Mart because it was cheaper than what the wholesaler was charging them. I know a guy that ran a Texaco station. and he could buy the Havoline engine oil for less at Wal Mart than what Texaco would charge him.
Old Guy
That would be a welcome return.
What to do with the real estate of empty shopping malls? I envision relatively high end apartments with Dr Office, Dentist, Drug Store and satellite police station within the former mall. Abandoned WallMarts become hydroponic farms. Waste not, want not. Throwing away solid structural property is crazy.
With the mall here, they just bulldozed the Penney part. The rest is going to be part strip mall and part school of some sort.
FEMA re-education camp, maybe?
We keep looking for some cataclysmic event but we really don’t need one to get to SHTF. SHTF is happening. I would say “in slow motion” but it is not so slow. If you have no job and no money in the bank and owe your shirt, you’re in SHTF.
J.C. Penney: They’ve closed 138 stores and plan to turn all the remaining ones into toy stores.
This doesn’t sound right; I don’t think this is accurate information.
I agree
I agree.
J.C. Penney lost the American Family because my mother dressed me from head to toe at the beginning of every school year and how the mighty have fallen.
And even after that I made most of my clothing purchases from Penneys.
The clothing line in my cities store prior to closing
looked as if it has been produced in a sweat shop.
The quality of clothing in Sears and all similar department stores has been terrible. Most of it becomes rags within a year or so. And the cost has been approaching what you’d pay at a higher end store where you can hope to find some decent quality.
Since I have the skill (and do it well), I’m returning to making my own clothing. A big plus is that it will actually fit my figure vice no matter what I purchase looks like it came from a recycling bin. Also, what I stitch up will last for a long time as long as good quality materials are selected in the first place. I noticed some poor quality goods in fabric shops as well.
The only business on that list that exists here is CVS, and I don’t shop there because of its location. My medicine copay is the same no matter where I go, so I go to the locally owned drug store, where they know my name and have my prescription ready every time.
The businesses on the list that did exist here killed themselves.
Radio Shack quit concentrating on stereos, computers, and electronic parts. The last time I went in ours before it closed, the clerks knew nothing about anything except cell phones, and there was very little in the way of parts and cables.
Penney lost me when they wouldn’t let me order something in the catalog department and pay cash for it. They weren’t ordering through an in-house system like they used to. They were actually just using the company’s internet website, which I could have done at home. The website isn’t set up to take cash. I had to think outside the box. I asked them the exact amount of my order, including tax, etc. Then I bought a gift card for that amount, which they could accept my cash for. Then I used the gift card for my order. That was my last time setting foot in a Penney store.
I have money to spend, but the stores are shooting themselves by not selling what I want to buy.
I went in Walmart a while back to buy some onions. They didn’t have a single onion of any kind at all. That is pure mismanagement.
There are no record stores around here. There are no book stores around here. There are no real hobby stores around here (Hobby Lobby doesn’t count because of their limited selection). There are no computer stores around here.
There are so many things I need, but they just aren’t for sale in this town.
arch,
I don’t know where you live.
I supposedly live in paradise
and all you complain about is normal
life for me.
I have #50 of bananas to get rid of
want some? We dehydrate and send them to
family.
Relic:
Fifty pounds? That’s a bonanza !!!
_
My wife eats dehydrated bananas like candy. Whenever we have too many bananas, and they start getting old, we dehydrate them.
Archivist,, you are so right about all you said about our city. Radio Shack really did devote about 1/3 of its space to cell phones and had young kids, mainly minorities, waiting on us who knew nothing about anything other than the latest fad gadgets. The mall you mentioned is at least 50% empty and was recently in forclosure and sold at a huge discount to folks who are now demolishing part of it and making way for the remaining stores to all have frontage instead of being inside the mall. As far as not having a lot of the stores you mention is because we are not far enough from the big city to the north, but their malls are in trouble also. Military circle opened about 40ish years ago to great fanfare but now is mainly just a hangout for inner city youth. I was in there several years ago, did not feel safe although nothing happened and have not returned since. And as far as me,, I think that I ordered all of my Christmas gifts directly on the web,, no sales tax , free delivery, mostly cheaper prices, and most importantly no visiting the stores. The net is not going away and retail stores just cannot compete any more. KF
At least we can go to the movies for $4.50 a ticket.
Around here in the Wash DC area, seems like unless it’s a high dollar mall, there are a lot of youth just hanging around looking for something to do. The mall just north of me used to have the hair salon I went to but I quit when it looked like gangs hanging around. When they left the mall (due to the gangs), I went right back to my hair stylist. Not that I’m there so frequently but who wants to risk their life or what they carry for a hair cut.
From what I’ve read, the effects of the ’29 crash rippled through the economy for many years before bottoming out. IMHO it’s prolly gonna get worse before it gets better. These stores close, then the warehouses that supply them get hammered. The paychecks stop so they can’t add to the local economies. On and on. Our youth are really getting the raw end of the deal.
In the end the manufacturer is someone in Asia that goes back to the rice patty. There lay a time bomb of political discontent.
What do you go back to? Cotton picking job that used to be abundant in your neck of the wood? Or, perhaps harvesting tobacco plants?
Only retail that is doing well is dollar stores. The fact that dollar stores are doing well is a indicator people don’t have the $ anymore. You know personal debt is at epic levels. They keep telling us the economy is doing well but we are seeing the opposite.
The economy is doing well if you are looking at Wall Street. If you look at Main Street, the ordinary citizen has been suffering for quite some time.
Many persons of retirement age or about to retire have little or no savings. The biggest reason? No money left over after paying bills. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/now-the-bad-news-and-slightly-less-horrible-news-about-saving-for-retirement-2018-03-07
I’ve read numerous stories about homelessness because people cannot afford the rent or house payment. It’s not because they don’t have a job or two; it’s because paychecks have not gone up as quickly as inflation. One example: https://www.rt.com/usa/409230-silicon-valley-working-homeless/ And another: https://www.wsj.com/articles/thousands-of-working-new-yorkers-are-living-in-homeless-shelters-1491862238
So glad to be among the awakened and have options.
Well, each time we all order from Amazon, we just ensure these type of repercussions. ‘Bout the only store chain I’ll miss is Radio Shack; however, what they used to be has been long gone for some time. The rest? I really don’t give a damn.
Store shut downs like these have been going on for decades…It’s just survival of the fittest…
If you lose your job in retail you can always cut grass or clean houses. My wife thinks she needs to pay someone to clean our home. The lady frick’n makes more money per hour than I do and doesn’t pay any taxes !
Old xxxish joke:
Why did God create joy-him?
Somebody has to pay retail !!!!
_?
Lol!!
B from CA – did your old hag wife tell you that joke?
When you keep hiring the same morons and idiots in the workplace whether they be in management or non-management, what else would you expect?
If you try to out Wal-Mart, Wal-mart; you deserve to go belly up.
None of the above listed stores focus on Quality, Customer Service or Value. They all focus on trying to get shit as cheaply as possible and that has little Value to sell to people who dont give a crap about Quality and only want to spend the least they have to pay for.
Are there exceptions? Of course, but they only prove the rule.
Shitty companies hiring shitty managers and shitty employees selling shitty stuff going out of business?
Good Riddance.
That’s my feeling on the list also. Haven’t shopped at many of those places for a long time because I don’t want to waste my hard earned dollars on garbage or my time looking for decent quality goods. I also got tired of poor customer service. There is no reason to treat a potential sale like an insect.
Thousands of regional grocers are next with their massive retail theft, massive debt and teeny tiny 3% profit margins.
Stock market to jump 50% the six months after Trump’s tariff scam fails.
We’ll see how gullible Trump is should he make an agreement with NK that costs the US taxpayer any money. See also Bill Clinton 1994 and NK.
Get ready. The American taxpayer is about to pay to feed North Korea, again.
Interesting thing about the United States. Most charity begins at home; not abroad like it does here.
The idiocy of buying online knows no bounds. You would think activists would be all over it.
Imagine all that goes into buying something online vs. buying something at your local store. First there is the packaging. Packaging for 1 vs packaging for many when it is sent to the stores. They typically shring wrap a whole pallet of goods, instead of just yours. So packaging trash skyrockets, along with the number of forests needed. And the plastics, and tape.
Then there is the added transportation of your online purchase, and again it is for 1 vs. many. Think of all the gas used by the planes, trains, UPS trucks, fedex trucks, snail mail trucks. Wow!
And then you fill your garbage cans with all the packaging trash. Now the landfills are as big as the city you live in. Mountains high. Compressed by earth moving tractors. And that’s not to mention all the trash that ends up in the oceans. Trash patches everywhere. Hundreds of miles long!
Environmentalists should be up in arms and protesting Amazon, but they instead hug Amazon, and buy, buy, buy!
The last couple of items I purchased online had no wrapping at all other than the standard boxes the items came in at the store. There was no extra wrapping.
Our mailman hates Amazon, because people are ordering heavy items, and he has to deliver them to the house, rather than just the mailbox like he does the regular mail. That’s a lot of extra work and extra walking for a rural route.
Most of those stores depend on Name Brand N-ggas to buy the overpriced shit they sell.
Only the strong survive. Welcome to 2018. Its only going to get worse.
Sears in Westminster Mall at Huntington Beach, California will close its doors in April. All sales are final with up to 60% off on clothes and 70% on jewelries.
That mall has JC Penney, Maycy’s, and Target. No wonder Sears is closing down.
First, I’ll try to put an end to the italics
Next, lots of layoffs, but they failed to mention about all the new jobs, like Amazon hiring 800 here and 1500 there for the warehouses. Someone has to go get that stuff off the shelf and pack and ship it. FexEx parks a 55 foot trailer there, and when it goes to FedEx people have to unload it, etc.
Those Amazon jobs are only for the illegals and undocumented, the slaves. This country, like Rome, was founded upon slavery. Cannot exist without slavery. The only freedom and equality is that slavery in the U.S. is blind to color. We are all slaves. So, forget getting any of those 1,500 jobs at Amazon. You aren’t good enough.
I’ve read a few stories about how Amazon treats its warehouse staff. It’s ugly. Most are so worn out from extremely long shifts and very high output requirements that it’s amazing anyone gets the correct merchandise.
This is but one of many stories that are easy to search online. http://gawker.com/amazon-warehouse-workers-are-treated-like-a-child-a-d-1651376061
OK, try again
Guess not
Globalism doesn’t require retail. Neither does total world domination (compliments of the U.S. Government). One government. One store. One retail.
Globalism, besides equaling total world domination equals “Monopoly.”
If you want your retail experience of old, you are going to have to travel for it — to the designated international cities, like New York or San Francisco in the former U.S. Paris in the former Europe. Moscow in the former USSR. Etc.
For the hoi polloi there will still be Amazon.com.
I would infinitely prefer to buy something that I can see locally than to buy online. I hate to give out financial information to people that I don’t. The problem is that the local sellers don’t have what I need. It is not a question of avoiding sales taxes since I usually end up paying more on line.
I choose not to go to malls for the simple reason of having to deal with uncivilized chimps.
WE NEED TO BECOME LOCALIZED. SHOP AT MOM AND POP STORES NEAR YOU. IF THERE AREN’T ANY, START YOUR OWN BUSINESS. HARD WARE STORES AND FARMERS MARKETS WILL FLOURISH WHEN ALL THE BIG BOX STORES DIE. FARMING WILL BECOME THE NEW OCCUPATION FOR MANY PEOPLE.