Retail Stores, Store Closures, Super Markets, Wholesale, Dollar Stores, Malls, Convenience Stores

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Store Closures

• having discussions with liquidators: sign of a retailer struggling to find a buyer for its business after declaring bankruptcy; Source: CNBC

• Store Closures: 7,100 (through Nov 2024) - up +69% from previous year; Source: CBS News

  • 2025: over 2,500 stores closing across America: Party City (700 stores), Joann (500 stores), Big Lots (480 stores), Walgreens (450 stores), Family Dollar (370 stores), Macy's (66 stores), Kohl's (27 stores), JCPenney (8 stores); Source: Business Insider

  • 2025 trend: Retailers have already announced over 2,000+ store closures 2025 with merchants such as Advance Auto Parts, Walgreens, Kohl's, and Macys; over 15,000 brick-and-mortar locations are set to shutter this year (more than double last year's 7,325 closures); projected 9,200 net store closures (significantly outpacing the 5,994 recorded at the pandemic's peak in 2020); Source: eMarketer

  • Family Dollar, CVS Health, Big Lots, Conn's, and rue21 are closing the most stores

  • 45 retailers filed for bankruptcy protection (vs. 25 last year)

    
    

Supermarkets

• barcodes reveal an item's Universal Product Code to drive efficiency now that supermarkets stock an average of 30,000 products; Source: The Atlantic

• the center aisles of supermarkets stock essential items that won’t go bad quickly: packaged food and household goods (ex. Cereal, cookies, paper towels, dish soap); price increases for packaged food tend to outlast those for fresh foods because processed products often have longer and more complex supply chains (vs. Produce can be delivered from fields to stores in just a few days); prices for less-processed products on the perimeter of the store such as meat, produce, and dairy tend to be more closely tied to the vagaries of weather, geopolitics, and swings in global commodity markets; the big national brands that dominate the center store also have greater leverage to negotiate higher prices; Source: WSJ 

• 38,307 supermarkets; average number items carried in supermarket: 35,829; online: 6.5% of total sales; Source: The Food Industry Association 

• Kroger is America’s largest supermarket chain; 2,800 stores in the United States; Source: Business Insider 

Wholesale

• Costco Wholesale Corporation is the largest wholesale club operator in the United States; it is a global membership warehouse club that operates more than 740 membership warehouse stores, offers discount prices on around 3,700 products, and serves more than 90 million members in 44 U.S. states, Washington D.C., Puerto Rico, Australia, Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Spain; it had 2017 revenue of roughly $129 billion and employed around 231,000 individuals; Source: Hoovers and Costco 

• wholesale clubs: BJ's, Sam's Club, Costco; Source: PlacerAI

  
  

Dollar Stores

• Temu: world's largest online dollar store; $30 billion in U.S. sales (2025); Source: Bloomberg

• dollar stores: dollar stores make billions; in 2018, Dollar Tree made $22 billion in revenue; the stores are designed to get customers to spend more money, from keeping product sizes small to stocking private-label goods; dollar stores also tempt customers who like the feeling of finding a good deal; on average, a new dollar store opens in the U.S. every 6 hours; Source: Business Insider 

Malls

• 900 shopping malls operating in America; Source: The Economist

• Simon Property Group: America’s largest shopping mall owner: 20 malls in America and 29 globally; 200 total properties; Source: Reuters and Economist and CNBC 

• Ala Moana Shopping Center (Hawaii): America’s most valuable mall; world’s largest open-air mall (over 2.4 million square feet of retail space); generates more than $1,500 in sales per square foot; over 350 stores and restaurants; Source: Business Insider 

• Mall of America (Minnesota): America’s largest shopping mall; it receives around 40 million visitors each year; there are some 520 stores and 50 restaurants at any given time; across its 5.6 million square feet, visitors can find a 27-ride theme mark, a miniature golf coarse, and a 1.3 million-gallon aquarium complete with sharks; Source: FT and USA Today and McKinsey & Company 

Convenience Stores

• convenience store count: 152,396 convenience stores (2024) operating in America (+1.5% increase from previous year); Source: NACS 

  • convenience stores sell 80% of the motor fuels purchased in America

  • Texas has the most convenient stores

• 60% of America’s convenience stores are mom-and-pop owned; Source: WSJ 

• 7-Eleven is America’s largest convenience-store owner: 12,600 stores in the U.S.; Source: WSJ 

• globally: Japan is home to the world’s 3 largest minimart chains: Source: Economist 

  • Seven & I Holdings (the giant which owns 7-Eleven and accounts for 1/3 of the industry’s global revenues)

  • FamilyMart

  • Lawson