Retail Store Openings and Closings January 2016

January store openings and closings numbers from Chain Store Guide shows lopsided counts. In January we saw only 15 store openings and 274 store closings.  For January, we saw a 259 net loss of stores.

Viewing results from a geographic perspective, the Pacific and Midwest regions saw the most store openings and the Northeast had the most store closings.  The Rocky Mountain region saw the least amount of activity in new store openings and the least amount of store closings.

Looking at the results by category, Chain Supermarket stores closed the majority of stores at 218 and saw the most new store openings at 13.

Let's take a closer look.

Openings - 15 Total

Chain Supermarkets stores led at 13 new store openings including Sprouts Farmers Markets and Walmart Neighborhood Market stores opening three each. The General Merchandise category opened two; one Dollar Tree and one Dollar General.

Looking at openings geographically, the Midwest and Pacific each opened four.  The Atlantic and South each opened three and the Rocky Mountain saw only one.  

Closings – 274 Total

The Chain Supermarket category saw the most closures at 218 including 104 Walmart Neighborhood Markets and 52 Pathmark stores. Discount stores followed with 49 store closures. Of these 49 stores Walmart, Walmart Express and Walmart Supercenters closed a combined total of 36 stores along with 13 Target stores. Chain Drug stores closed five while Category Specialists and Home Centers and Hardware stores closed one each.

Reviewing closures by region, the Northeast saw the most closure activity at 87 followed by the South at 51 closures.  The Atlantic region shuttered 44 stores while the Southwest closed 41. The Midwest saw 35 and the Pacific saw 13. The least amount of closure activity was in the Rocky Mountain region where three stores were shuttered.

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