Yahoo Finance Big Lots to close many California stores, including three Merced County locations
Big Lots will be closing dozens of stores in California, including three Merced County locations.
Big Lots stores will be closing in Merced, Atwater and Los Banos. The company has not issued an exact closing date, but employees at the Merced and Los Banos stores said those locations expect to close in mid-September.
“That was a well-loved store,” said Los Banos mayor Paul Llanez. “I know a lot of people, including my wife, shop there. They love that store. So, yes, we’re very disappointed.”
There is a large sign that reads “Closing” hung outside the Merced Big Lots store, which is located 665 Fairfield Drive near the mall. The store is offering 20% off everything in the store to customers.
Big Lots is the second large department store to close its doors in Merced, joining Barnes & Noble, which closed its Merced location in May.
“That’s certainly two big losses,” said Merced Mayor Matthew Serratto. “The question is how do we make up for it? There’s a natural kind of churn with businesses where some come in and some are replaced, and that’s capitalism.
“Less efficient businesses are replaced by more efficient ones, but at the same time, that’s a big loss, losing two businesses. You never want to have vacant store fronts, too. You just want to make sure those get filled as soon as possible.”
When Barnes & Noble closed its Merced location, the company said it’s possible it could find another Merced location.
“The City provided (Barnes & Noble) and their commercial agent with sites and buildings to consider for relocation,” said Deputy City Manager Frank Quintero. “Now it’s up to (Barnes & Noble) to perform their market analysis and due diligence and determine the best location for another bookstore.”
Big Lots stores located in Turlock and Modesto are also closing, according to the company website.
Messages to the Big Lots media relations were not immediately returned.
In it’s quarterly report to the Securities and Exchanges Commission, the company stated, “In 2024, we currently expect to open three stores and close 35 to 40 stores.”
According to The Modesto Bee, the number of Big Lots stores closing nationwide is 109.
Big Lots reported a net loss of $205 million for the first quarter of fiscal 2024, which ended May 4. The company also reported a 10.2% decrease in net sales from 2023.
“While we made substantial progress on improving our business operations in Q1, we missed our sales goals due largely to a continued pullback in consumer spending by our core customers, particularly in high ticket discretionary items,” stated Bruce Thorn, president and CEO of Big Lots in a June press release. “We remain focused on managing through the current economic cycle by controlling the controllables.”
Thorn added while most of the Big Lots stores are doing well... “there are still a significant number of under-performing stores that we are working hard to address.”
Llanez feels for the people losing their jobs.
“Anytime people lose their jobs and it was out of their control, that’s really disappointing,” Llanez said. “Again, Big Lots was just another option for our community to shop at so losing that is a big deal.”
