Big Lots is preparing to close dozens of stores, including several in Connecticut, as financial issues bring the retailer’s future into question.
The discount retailer announced in its quarterly report last month that it expects to shutter as many as 40 of its stores nationwide by the end of the year.
The retailer’s website reveals that the wave of impending closures will include the following Connecticut locations:
- Pleasant Valley Road in Manchester
- Turnpike Square in Milford
- Boston Post Road in Waterford
Get top local stories in Connecticut delivered to you every morning. >Sign up for NBC Connecticut's News Headlines newsletter.
Big Lots, which operates 16 stores in Connecticut and more than 1,400 nationwide, announced the closures in the face of a 10% decline in net sales and a potential loan default, according to the retailer's quarterly report.
A default on the retailer's 2022 loan — a scenario Big Lots has concluded carries a "significant likelihood" — would raise "substantial doubt" about the company's ability to stay afloat.
But as brick-and-mortar stores continue to fall further out of favor amid the rise of online shopping, the 57-year-old bargain store is only the latest chain retailer to announce store closures.
Case in point, Bob's Stores is slated to close the last of its remaining locations this month after filing for bankruptcy in late June.
Stop & Shop announced just last week that it plans to shutter 32 of its grocery stores — including five of its 81 Connecticut locations — by the end of the year.
Walgreens, too, is finalizing a plan that could result in hundreds of store closures in the coming years.
And going back even further, 2023 saw both Christmas Tree Shops and Bed Bath & Beyond go under.
