It may be a new year, but 2025 is still managing to bring plenty of customs and commonalities from 2024 to the world of retail.
For instance, some of the largest and most successful retailers in 2024 are likely to continue as the biggest and best of 2025.
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Target (TGT) announced in mid-January that it saw record sales during its 2024 holiday season and lifted its sales guidance, foreseeing a 1.5% increase in comparable store sales during the fourth quarter.
Similarly, Walmart (WMT) raised its sales guidance for fiscal 2025 after a bumper holiday shopping season, lifting its net sales, operating income, and earnings per share for the year ahead.
But as the giant retailers just keep getting bigger and stronger, others are struggling to get by.
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Joann Fabrics, the once popular craft and textile store with over 80 years of operational history, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy for a second time in just one year earlier this month.
Joann pinned doubt on its slowing sales, including “acute and unexpected,” inventory issues and “untenable” debt.
Bankruptcies are nothing new to 2025. Last year saw more than half a million filings — about a 14% increase from just one year prior.
And some of those bankruptcies included well-known names, like Red Lobster, Party City, Body Shop, and Bowflex.
Advance Auto Parts closes over 700 stores by mid-2025.
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Popular retailers had trouble in 2024
While the recent uptick of bankruptcies ranged across disparate businesses, like restaurants and mall retailers, many of them shared at least a few common threads.
Express and The Body Shop, for example, were both predominantly located in shopping malls, which have been waning in popularity for the better part of a decade now. Trapped in an already unpopular shopping modality, Express and The Body Shop suffered because of a lack of foot traffic. Both were forced to put inventory on a near-constant sale, resulting in cuts to their bottom lines.
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Party City and Joann Fabrics, on the other hand, both catered to interest groups. Unlike their larger peers, they sold only specialty items. Their larger peers have been able to beat them out by selling the most modern conveniences — like pet food, paper products, clothing, and tech accessories — plus specialty products like party supplies or craft project essentials.
Often, those peers can sell these goods for even cheaper. It turns out, competing with convenience and lower price points is a near guaranteed route to failure for smaller retailers.
Popular auto parts retailer selling stores
Another struggling retailer in 2025 is Advance Auto Parts (AAP) , the aftermarket automotive parts store with nearly 5,000 stores across North America.
In November 2024, the retailer announced it would shutter 523 corporate-owned locations, exit 204 independent locations, and close four distribution centers mainly on the West Coast.
In the same month, it finalized a deal to sell its Worldpac wholesaler business to investment firm Carlyle for $1.5 billion. It called this sale a strategic part of its “simplification” process.
Now, Advance Auto Parts has begun to sell off some of those stores, announcing they have put 200 leased locations and 24 owned locations up for sale.
A major part of Advance Auto Parts’ issue is that it has too many locations across the country. Its over 4,900 locations beats out even that of Walmart — which has just over 4,000 locations in the U.S. according to 2024 numbers. And since the former sells stuff primarily for cars and trucks — the niche retailer has too much property to run and maintain for it to be a profitable business.
Hilco Real Estate is helping to manage the store sales. The sales will take place across 46 U.S. states.
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