8,200 Stores Gone in 2025 and Nobody in a Corner Office is Losing Sleep
My old man worked thirty one years at the same plant. Thirty one years. And then one Tuesday they called everyone into the cafeteria and said thanks for your service, heres a pamphlet about unemployment benefits. I was sixteen. Watched him just… sit in his truck in the driveway for like an hour after he got home that day.
I think about that alot when I read stories like this.
Coresight Research says 8,234 stores closed this year. Thats not a typo. Eight thousand two hundred thirty four. Up 12% from last year which wasnt exactly great either if you remember.
And look I know I know. Progress. Creative destruction. The market finding efficencies or whatever they teach you at business school. But man. Eight thousand stores is alot of somebody’s first jobs. Alot of managers who worked their way up from the register. Alot of people who dont have a backup plan because nobody ever taught them they needed one.
Forever 21 went bankrupt in March. Second time for them actually. Closed like 500 stores because and I’m quoting here “economic challenges impacting our core customers.” Which is corporate for teenagers stopped buying our stuff and started ordering from Shein at 3am on their phones.
Party City done. Forty years of balloon animals and plastic tablecloths and now nothing. Just… nothing.
Rite Aid closed every single location by October. Every one.
And Joann man. That one actually got me. My mom used to drag me to Joann when I was a kid. Hated it at the time obviously. But 800 stores just gone. Michaels bought the brand name which feels like grave robbing but whatever. Thats capitalism baby.
Heres the thing nobody wants to say out loud though. The Amazon effect gets blamed for everything but this aint just about people clicking buy now instead of driving to the mall. This is about debt. Stupid amounts of debt. Party City was carrying over 1.7 billion when they finally gave up. Billion with a B.
You dont rack up that kind of debt by accident. Somebody in a suit made those decisions. Probably got a nice bonus for it too before everything collapsed.
The only stores actually growing? Dollar General. Dollar Tree. Aldi. Places where you buy off brand cereal and energy drinks because real groceries cost too much now. 5,252 new discount stores opened this year. Let that sink in.
We’re not broke broke as a country. But we’re definitely Dollar Store broke. Theres a difference I guess but it dont feel great either way.
Coresight predicted 15000 closures back in January so technically we beat expectations?? Silver linings and all that. Though 566 more stores already announced theyre closing in 2026 so maybe dont celebrate yet.
Walgreens. Kroger. Saks Off 5th. All trimming locations before we even flip the calendar.
The retail apocalypse everybody kept predicting for years finally showed up I guess. Just took its time.
I dunno. Every one of those 8,234 stores was somebodys paycheck. Somebodys routine. Probably somebodys whole identity if theyd been there long enough. And now its just… empty storefronts and liquidation signs.
The people making these decisions never have to see that part though do they.
