NEW YORK: Macy’s says it plans to close about 100 stores next year as the department store operator aims to become more nimble in a competitive market. That represents close to 14 percent of its store base.
The retailer said it was not announcing the store locations until final decisions are made, but said most of the stores would close in early 2017.
In the Akron-area, Macy’s still has locations at Summit Mall, in the Stow-Kent Plaza and Belden Village Mall. The Macy’s at Chapel Hill Mall closed earlier this year.
The closures come as Macy’s reported Thursday that second-quarter profits and sales fell. The results, however, beat Wall Street estimates as efforts to bring back customers are taking hold.
The nation’s largest department store chain says that it earned $11 million, or 3 cents per share, in the quarter ended July 30. That compares with $217 million, or 64 cents per share, in the year-ago period.
Excluding charges that are related to store closings, the company earned 51 cents, which is above the 48 cent estimate from FactSet.
Revenue fell 3.9 percent to $5.87 billion. That topped the $5.77 billion estimate from FactSet.
Macy’s currently operates 675 full-line stores nationwide; including locations such as Macy’s Home stores, it has 728. The ones that will be shut down are full-line stores, and they generate roughly $1 billion in annual sales, or 4 percent of Macy’s total sales.
“Nearly all of the stores to be closed are cash flow positive today, but their volume and profitability in most cases have been declining steadily in recent years,” Macy’s President Jeff Gennette said in a news release.
“This country is overstored, given evolving customer shopping habits,” Macy’s Chief Financial Officer Karen Hoguet said during a call with analysts.
Sales at Macy’s stores open at least a year were down 2.6 percent compared with the second quarter of 2015, the sixth consecutive quarter in which comparable sales dropped.