Big Lots circling the drain: More closures, bankruptcy looms

[Romr123]

Went to a weirdly located store I'd never been to in Farmington Hills, MI (weirdly located and accessed strip center with Target at one end and a movie theater at the other, with other inline stores being definitely grade B (off-brand gym, Office Depot in an outlot converted into a kid's athletic center/birthday venue).

Visited the store right after going to Ollie's which is only a couple miles away. Had bought a few random things at Ollies---they weren't as compelling as usual (looks like P&G has tightened up closeout availability---much less of that than usual).

This is apparently a go-forward store, very deep and narrow with furniture crammed into the middle (feeling very much out of place) and a racetrack around (seasonal and home decor to the front, HBA/Food/Chemicals to the rear).

Good amount of Christmas decor, including some rather fun novelty T-shirts (types I'd never seen before).

Domestics (linens/towels/bedding) was well-stocked and far higher quality than Ollies (for instance, Ollies had -no- cotton sheets....they only had rather nasty 100% polyester sheet sets which maxed out at $19.99). BL had those and higher priced all-cotton sheet sets (quite reasonable at $29.99).
BL was pretty well stocked on small appliances and various hardware-y things.
HBA was weak (heavily stocked but marked prices quite high)
Grocery and chemicals was about normal (DSD merchandise heavily stocked)

This is a nicer facility than the other close-in go-forward store (which is about 20 miles to the east in Eastpointe in a ratty old supermarket). Closer proximity to Ollies' than the Eastpointe store (fwiw).

[ClownLoach]

I guess the longest distance from a store to Durant, OK goes to the Longview, WA Store - a 31 hour drive.

I think Longview was closing but got pulled from the closing list a couple weeks ago.

I also cannot find any court filing that says they have advised the court they plan to keep these stores open where they stopped the liquidation sales.

When Rite Aid pulled stores from the closing list they immediately filed something in the docket about it.

My guess is they'll use a 3rd Party Logistics service to handle this spread out geography. No need to have their own warehouses for a junky store like this. As labor and land costs rise you're going to continue to see retailers push to 3PL and close their own DCs unless they have highly specialized merchandise. They can have these companies pick up everything from Oklahoma or wherever and they'll handle it from there, separating it out as needed. They get tremendous flexibility from such an arrangement.

I guess this means Big Lots will stick around in these distant locations. In Reno they are building so many warehouses and many just build as spec not even with tenants and seem to be opening with a model where they may be shared between different parties so I think they are doing exactly what you are talking about here where this type of separation can take place.

I am very excited for this, even if it is somewhat inconvenient in Carson City. I would have preferred they keep Sparks open instead as that is more convenient for me and that store seemed to do a lot more business but I guess they made the decision so Carson City it will be. Both Reno Stores are closed now and they have been taking apart the fixtures that did not sell all week, so I guess those two stores will stay closed.

The challenge of 3rd party logistics in my experience was accuracy and speed. They are set up to print the same or very similar pick labels. Problem is usually they pick manually so if they make a mistake it sometimes is the same mistake at every unit the facility delivers to. But for liquidation junk like this it probably doesn't matter. They're not going to have the regular items stored for automatic replenishment if they're really interested in being an Ollie's clone, so less likely to make mistakes as everything that comes in is probably intended to go back out immediately.

The other downside is the cost as they're basically charged by the carton. But I think Big Lots was burdened by their infrastructure costs being fixed expenses, having warehouses that might need massive capacity one month and then sit less utilized the rest of the time. They needed those warehouses because of the highly seasonal business model they tried to put together, the block of aisles that appeared to be a clone of Hobby Lobby seasonal decor. And they needed warehouses for rapid replacement of auto replenishment SKUs because they thought they could run a miniature Target model with the planogrammed sections and bin labels for detergents, foods, etc. Assuming both models are gone and they're going to be an Ollie's type store they will benefit from a 3rd Party setup. They may also be able to wheel and deal with the companies that want to use them for liquidation of their overstocks, they could negotiate payment for the handling. Some 3PL companies include CH Robinson, JB Hunt, and even UPS who runs it as UPS Supply Chain Solutions. All of them receive, pick and ship your merchandise using a WMS system as if it's your own DC.

[storewanderer]

Looks like they adjusted the bonus structure for salaried management at closing stores.

~ttps://www.reddit.com/r/BigLots/comments/1h31n ... _q3_bonus/

[dcpeachy]

I went to the Albuquerque/Montgomery location since I had a birthday coupon to use and I saw that this location was no longer closing. We have one other store remaining in Albuquerque that also is no longer closing. It had signs over the door, with the cartoon theme, saying "We're staying open!" This location is in a former Stein Mart, which was a KMart (and later KDollar) that was subdivided for Hobby Lobby and Stein Mart's short-lived second attempt at Albuquerque.

Inside the store was very, very, very sad. However, it's not a matter of the store physically being in poor condition--this store was only a couple of years old at most, was nicely themed, and pre-bankruptcy looked very nice.

Most aisles only had merchandise on a couple of shelves, if any. Products were spread out to make it look fuller, but almost everything, other than endcaps, and some of the home aisles, was only one item deep. Almost everything now has a price sticker, which is a change from before. Labeling shelves doesn't work when you don't have merchandise to put behind the labels. They had tons of summer stuff, a little Halloween, and then some Christmas stuff at the entrance.

People were buying furniture, which seemed to be the one area that might have been restocked. There were a couple of U-boats of new merchandise, but definitely not enough to make a dent in the emptiness.

The cashier said that my coupon was the first one all day that actually had worked.

[storewanderer]

I went to the Albuquerque/Montgomery location since I had a birthday coupon to use and I saw that this location was no longer closing. We have one other store remaining in Albuquerque that also is no longer closing. It had signs over the door, with the cartoon theme, saying "We're staying open!" This location is in a former Stein Mart, which was a KMart (and later KDollar) that was subdivided for Hobby Lobby and Stein Mart's short-lived second attempt at Albuquerque.

Inside the store was very, very, very sad. However, it's not a matter of the store physically being in poor condition--this store was only a couple of years old at most, was nicely themed, and pre-bankruptcy looked very nice.

Most aisles only had merchandise on a couple of shelves, if any. Products were spread out to make it look fuller, but almost everything, other than endcaps, and some of the home aisles, was only one item deep. Almost everything now has a price sticker, which is a change from before. Labeling shelves doesn't work when you don't have merchandise to put behind the labels. They had tons of summer stuff, a little Halloween, and then some Christmas stuff at the entrance.

People were buying furniture, which seemed to be the one area that might have been restocked. There were a couple of U-boats of new merchandise, but definitely not enough to make a dent in the emptiness.

The cashier said that my coupon was the first one all day that actually had worked.

The store in Carson City seems to have refilled a little the past couple days. It has almost no customers. Sales must be close to zero. I have no clue why they kept that store open and are closing Sparks but if their decision making made sense they may not be bankrupt. Carson got a ton of comforters, throws (both Black Friday specials), some cleaning supplies, and very very limited additional food. No new pet or drug/HBA (those aisles are like 80% empty). They just have the items spread out/thrown around throughout most of the store. They have not cleaned up the aisles from the closing sale yet even though that ended like 3 weeks ago.

Furniture was definitely restocked in Carson. New smelling displays even.

Supposedly items with a price ending in "8" are part of this new "extreme bargain" model they are going to shift to.

[ClownLoach]

Murrieta has finally removed all the new branding cartoon signage and begun liquidation. They share a wall with a dead 99 (smaller format one, I think maybe 14K). I suspect that they sold the lease to someone who wants both spaces. It could be a good spot for a HomeGoods.

Or there is an oversized first generation PetSmart in the center, maybe they want to downsize and modernize by moving over a few doors to the Big Lots. Some of these really large SoCal PetSmart stores are approaching 35 years old now and have received no real remodel work other than changed lights and the removal of steel set aisles that swapped to Lozier gondola as they moved to a DC replenishment model. They're surely of the age where lease exit is easy and new term may be expensive. Most of the first generation (anything opened before 1995) are oversized formats and have relocated or closed unless they are in a power center, specifically with Costco who delivers traffic to them.

[storewanderer]

Carson City Big Lots was notified it is closing again.

I guess they'll have to remove those "we're staying open" signs.

Wow.

Not sure I've ever seen a retailer run a liquidation sale for a month then cancel liquidation for a month then tell the store it is again closing... Merry Christmas! Maybe some independent furniture stores do that and I think there are laws surrounding this sort of deceptive advertising.

Wow...

Also appears they did the same merry go round to the stores in Redding, CA and Yakima, WA and Longview, WA.

[storewanderer]

On Friday since it was the last day before the Carson City Big Lots starts re-liquidating again and I had some coupons left I figured I'd give Big Lots one final run since that may be the last time I see one of them in a non-liquidating state.

To my surprised additional items had been restocked in this store since my last visit. They had restocked various items in cleaning, pet, grocery, and at this point the kitchen goods/home goods aisles were 100% full and looked "normal." They even had some name brand bath tissue (Charmin) in stock. I noticed shipping labels on various items/boxes waiting to be stocked showed a date of 11/27 so I assume this Oklahoma distribution center pulled the order that day and it took a while to get to Carson City. So the store could start to look "normal" just in time for liquidation.

So what was interesting is the items restocked were mostly "consistent stock" items. These are items that had been out of stock for the past 6+ months in these stores out here in NV. So I assume that Oklahoma distribution center was better stocked than the CA one and the CA one was not replenishing basic items for some time since it was earmarked for closure.

Also found it funny they still had some "we're staying open" signs out in the far perimeter of their lot (the ones around the entrance area and immediately in front of it were removed).

When I paid the cashier advised me of a $10 off $40 purchase that printed on my receipt. Glanced at the terms and it said not valid at closing stores. I mentioned to the cashier I guess this is only good today since you start to close again tomorrow? The cashier said not sure we will try to scan them if people bring them in since we've been giving them out all week and were told to tell every customer about it to get them to come back and shop.

[Super S]

I noticed today that there are closing signs now up at the Longview, WA location. This was the center part of a space once occupied by local grocer Sinnett's Market Place, with a Harbor Freight on one side and a Jo-Ann on the other side. Big Lots actually installed a drop ceiling in their portion when they moved in, and this was one of their nicer locations.

[storewanderer]

I noticed today that there are closing signs now up at the Longview, WA location. This was the center part of a space once occupied by local grocer Sinnett's Market Place, with a Harbor Freight on one side and a Jo-Ann on the other side. Big Lots actually installed a drop ceiling in their portion when they moved in, and this was one of their nicer locations.

I think Longview was liquidating in most of October, then got told it wasn't clothing so it stopped liquidating for a few weeks, now it is liquidating again. Same situation as Carson City, Redding, and a few others out west.