West Plains, MO. – Around the middle of July the Big Lots Store Company Head announced that due to the company’s battle with worsening financials, they will be closing stores across the U.S. The company has now released the list of stores that they plan on closing and the West Plains location is not on that list.
315 stores will be closed down around the United States. With 75 out 109 stores in California closing and several of the 106 locations in Florida on the chopping block too. According to CEO Bruce Thorn, the company’s failure to meet its sales goals can be blamed on “continued pullback in consumer spending by our core customers, particularly in high ticket discretionary items. We remain focused on managing through the current economic cycle by controlling the controllables.”
In recent reports, net sales for Big Lots decreased $114.5 million in the first quarter of 2024, or 10.2% compared to the same time last year. The retailer is also shown to have an increasing amount of long-term debt load, which jumped $72.7 million from $501.6 million. The makes it $573.8 million in debt within the first quarter of 2024.
