Store Closures Rise, Led by Party City, Big Lots and Walgreens

U.S. store closings last year reached their highest level since the pandemic — and even more stores are expected to close this year as shoppers’ money increasingly goes to a few industry winners, according to an analysis from Coresight Research.

Major retailers including Party City and Macy’swill close 7,325 stores in 2024, according to data from the Retail Advisory Group. This is the largest increase since retailers in the United States closed nearly 10,000 stores in 2020, the year the Covid pandemic began.

Since the start of the year, closures have continued to increase. Retailers have already announced 1,925 store closures so far in 2025, and that’s as of January 10 alone. The five retailers that announced the most closures this year are Party City, Big prizes, Walgreens Boot Alliance7-Eleven and Macy’s, respectively.

The retail consultancy predicts that retailers will close about 15,000 stores this year, as some traditional brands shrink and file for bankruptcy or companies in liquidation close their stores.

These striking figures reflect the stark divide between retailers gaining market share and those losing ground. Amazon, Costco And Walmart have gained momentum as shoppers seek value and convenience. On the other hand, some smaller chains and specialty retailers have struggled to keep their doors open or have been forced to downsize.

An increase in bankruptcies contributed to the high number of closures in 2024. According to Coresight data, there were 51 retail bankruptcies in 2024, compared to 25 in 2023. Some of them, like Party City, have the most of their closures in 2025.

Consumer spending remained strong, but more of the money went to fewer retailers. Holiday sales rose 4% year over year to $994.1 billion from Nov. 1 to Dec. 31, according to the National Retail Federation, the industry’s leading trade group. This total excludes car dealerships, gas stations and restaurants.

That’s roughly in line with pre-pandemic vacation spending, which increased by an average of 3.6% between 2010 and 2019.

Specialty retailers, in particular, have struggled: In December, discount chain Big Lots announced it would close all of its stores after a failed sale of the company, days before The Container Store filed for bankruptcy protection. Fabric and craft retailer Joann filed for bankruptcy protection earlier this month for the second time in a year.

But it wasn’t just the specialty stores. Last year, the greatest number of closures came from Dollar treeFamily dollar owned by one owner, CVS HealthConn’s, rue21 and Big Lots, respectively. Conn’s, a home goods and furniture retailer, and rue21, a teen clothing retailer, closed all of their stores after the parent company filed for bankruptcy protection in 2024.

John Mercer, head of global research at Coresight, said competitive threats, not declining demand, were to blame.

“Demand may be strong among consumers, but where is some of this increased demand going? Where is it being channeled?” he said.

He said retailers that close stores tend to fall into three categories: They close all locations as part of a liquidation, like Big Lots; closing many of their stores after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, such as The Container Store; or reducing their footprint as they adapt to rapidly changing consumer preferences, like Walgreens and CVS drugstores and the former Macy’s department store.

Macy’s, for example, is in the process of closing about 150 of its namesake stores across the country by early 2027. The department store operator is closing about 50 per year since it made the announcement in early 2024. It is opening a limited number of stores that are smaller, off-mall versions of its namesake stores and new locations of its most successful brands, Bloomingdale’s and the beauty supply chain Bluemercury.

Some new entrants are cutting into sales at older retailers, Mercer said. Coresight estimates that Chinese e-commerce companies Shein and Temu had combined revenue of about $100 billion last year, the majority of which came from outside the United States.

For example, more Americans are turning to sites like Temu for party balloons and storage bins, which may have contributed to the bankruptcy filings of Party City and The Container Store last year, he declared.

Even a slight decline in sales can deal a blow to retailers’ stores, which carry high fixed costs like leases and labor, Mercer said.

Some unique factors have widened the gap between store openings and closings, according to David Silverman, a retail analyst at Fitch Ratings. When a major mall like Macy’s closes, it can also cause smaller retailers to pull out. As some stores in malls or shopping centers close, they are also replaced by fitness studios, urgent care clinics or apartments instead of another retail store.

He added that population shifts during the Covid pandemic have changed retailers’ store traffic patterns and disrupted where they may have wanted to locate.

“Most businesses aren’t adding a lot of square footage and even those that until recently were adding a lot, like dollar stores, are rethinking their footprint,” he said.

Silverman said he expects more stores to close than open in the U.S. as retailers’ growth comes from online sales and as larger companies take a larger share of the market . Some of them, like Walmart, add much more volume with a single store than specialty retailers get with the dozens of locations they close, he added.

Investors will soon receive an update on which retailers are outperforming and underperforming. Most major retailers will release their quarterly results starting in mid-February.

Some retailers, including Kohl’s and Macy’s, announced their own plans to close stores before sharing their full quarterly results. Kohl’s announced earlier this month that it would close 27 underperforming stores by April, as well as an e-commerce distribution center in San Bernardino, California, in May.

There is some encouraging news for the retail sector, however: store openings also accelerated last year in the United States to 5,970 – the highest number since Coresight began tracking store openings and closings in 2012. The company expects this figure to remain roughly stable in 2025, with an estimated opening of 5,800 stores.

Last year, Dollar GeneralDollar Tree, 7-Eleven, Mexican convenience store Oxxo and Five below recorded the highest number of store openings.

So far this year, the top five retailers in terms of announced store openings in the United States are Aldi, JD Sports, Shops in Burlington, Pandora and Barnes & Noble, respectively.