Walmart to close half its stores in major U.S. city, citing huge financial losses

Updated: Apr. 15, 2023, 9:54 a.m. | Published: Apr. 15, 2023, 6:05 a.m.

By Katherine Rodriguez | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Walmart plans to shutter half its stores in Chicago, citing poor performance at each of the locations. ... There are eight stores in Chicago, and the company will close four of them.

Three of the locations are located in primarily minority-dominant areas of Chicago in its South and West Side neighborhoods and have long struggled with access to grocery and retail stores, according to CNN.

Walmart said in a blog post the four stores that are closing “lose tens of millions of dollars a year” and annual losses have doubled over the past five years.

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Workers at the affected Chicago stores will be able to switch to other Walmart stores, and the company said it would work with city government leaders to find a way to repurpose the space formerly occupied by the stores.

What Walmart’s pullback from Chicago says about Corporate America’s limits

Analysis by Nathaniel Meyersohn, CNN
Updated 4:09 PM EDT, Sat April 15, 2023

New York CNN — A line of Chicago mayors heavily courted Walmart over the last two decades, brushing aside community protests. And Walmart welcomed the opportunity to show cities it could be a strong corporate partner. ... But now, Walmart is pulling back from Chicago.

The largest retailer in the country announced plans this week to close four of its eight stores in the city, citing growing financial losses. Three are in predominantly Black and low-income neighborhoods, and their closures with little warning mean residents — including elderly citizens and people without reliable transportation — will have to travel further to buy groceries and pick up their medications.

“These stores lose tens of millions of dollars a year, and their annual losses nearly doubled in just the last five years,” Walmart said. Despite years of different strategies, the company said, it did not see a route to profitability for these stores. Walmart, which made $20.6 billion in 2022, did not specify why losses were growing in Chicago.

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Christopher Dilts/Bloomberg/Getty Images
Walmart gave less than a week's notice it would close four stores in Chicago.

Whole Foods closed in Chicago earlier this year, along with CVS, Aldi and Save A Lot. In 2019, Target closed two stores, angering residents. Chains like Dollar General and Family Dollar are expanding in low-income areas, but they don’t sell fresh groceries.

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