BUYER BEWARE
JCPenney to shut another location in popular mall as chain closes 150 stores in 5 years in latest retail bloodbath
Another popular location will also close this spring
JCPENNEY is set to shutter another location in a popular mall amid mass closures in recent years.
The retail bloodbath for the department store chain will continue over the coming months.
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Customers who frequent the JCPenney location at the Westfield Annapolis Mall in Annapolis, Maryland, will have until May 11, 2025, to shop, according to what an employee told The U.S. Sun.
Liquidation sales have already begun in January with discounts as high as 50% off.
Signs posted by shoppers in a Facebook thread also detailed that the building was recently sold.
It was anticipated that the Annapolis location would shutter sometime in 2025 after JCPenney announced in June that it was one of four stores to close for good.
Read More on Store Closures
JCPenney stores within The Shoppes at Bel Air in Mobile, Alabama; Elm Plaza in Waterville, Maine; and Sikes Senter in Wichita Falls, Texas; shuttered before the end of 2024.
The Westfield Annapolis Mall location was the only one of the four to hang on for a short while longer.
"Regretfully, we are unable to continue our current lease terms for these store locations and have been unable to find suitable locations in the market," JCPenney noted of the closure announcement in June, per Retail Dive.
"We are grateful to our dedicated associates and the loyal customers who have shopped at these locations throughout the years."
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"We continue to make every dollar count for America's diverse, working families and welcome them to shop at our other JCPenney stores in the area and at JCPenney.com," the company continued.
A fifth JCPenney in Topeka, Kansas, was also added to the list.
CLOSURES CONTINUE
The store, located within West Ridge Mall, will say goodbye to local customers on May 25, 2025, according to the Topeka Capital-Journal.
It was seemingly a difficult move for the company.
"The decision to close a store is never an easy one," a JCPenney spokesperson told the publication.
Customers were also left devastated at the closure confirmation.
US braces for '45,000 store closures'
Some 45,000 bricks-and-mortar stores could close in the next five years, experts have warned.
Several major retailers have announced store closures or gone out of business altogether in recent years.
In 2023, chains such as Foot Locker announced plans to close up to 400 outlets by 2026.
While, other well-known retailers like Tuesday Morning and Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams filed for bankruptcy in 2023.
Bed Bath & Beyond has closed all of its brick-and-mortar stores and is now an online-only retailer.
The most affected retailers have been clothing, consumer electronics, sporting goods, hobby, book, music, and home furnishing stores since the start of 2019.
UBS has predicted the total number of retail stores will drop by 45k from 958k to 913k.
Despite that, the report says that certain stores should thrive while others decline.
It said retailers such as Walmart, Costco, Home Depot, and Target, could be among the winners.
"They were my go-to for some of my favorite clothes and coats," a frequent shopper wrote online.
"JCPenney was one of my favorite places," another added.
A third called it "terrible news."
Four other JCPenney stores — two in Ohio and two in New Mexico — have also been listed for sale.
The closures are estimated to bring in about $1 billion for JCPenney, per a report from CoStar News.
STAYING ALIVE
JCPenney has faced financial struggles for years with the rapid growth of e-commerce, further fueled by the coronavirus pandemic, which provided a "final nail" in the coffin for the brand, per Brittanica Money.
It later filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2020, resulting in 175 closures between 2020 and 2021 alone as part of an "optimization strategy to better position the Company for sustainable, profitable growth."
Commercial real estate firm Brookfield Asset Management and real estate investment trust Simon Property Group bought JCPenney out of bankruptcy for $300 million in cash and took on about $500 million of its debt.
Less than 660 JCPenney stores remain nationwide, considerably less than its peak in 1973 of over 2,000.
Even so, competitors are also conducting mass closures.
Read More on The US Sun
Macy's confirmed that 150 locations would shutter by the end of 2026 with 66 already confirmed for this year.
Kohl's also said it would axe 27 underperforming stores.