Major Discount Retailer In Texas To Close Up To 40 Stores This Year

A major retailer with nearly 1,400 locations in the U.S. has announced it will close 35 to 40 stores amid "macroeconomic challenges" that have affected their core customers.

In other words, people who already need to shop at a discount rate for household items, food, furniture, and other necessities have difficulty finding the funds to shop at Big Lots due to inflation.

While Big Lots has not yet announced which stores will close, Texas has the most retailer locations at 116, so it's entirely within the realm of possibility that Texas could lose a few to a dozen or so stores.

This will, of course, also cost some folks their in-store jobs, and possibly also distribution jobs and other positions in the company.

Big Lots has hemorrhaged $205 million in losses in the first fiscal quarter of 2024, leading to speculation the company could declare bankruptcy. They would join a long list of other companies that declared bankruptcy this year like Red Lobster, rue21, Express, and more.

Overall, sales were down over 10% from just last year, showing how much less consumers are spending on "luxuries" like toilet plungers and off-brand chips.

I have also cut my monthly trip to Big Lots, instead opting to forgo snacks almost entirely, to buy smaller bottles of laundry detergent (only when I'm out).

I'm definitely not buying anything like new housewares or rugs or anything so decadent as a new couch. I am by no means poor, it's just that most of us are having to adjust to get the bills paid.

Here's hoping something will right the U.S. economic ship, and soon. What else can we possibly give up?