Walmart is closing 15 stores this year

Walmart on Tuesday confirmed it will close a total of 15 stores this year in 12 states and Washington, D.C. The locations that are closing “do not meet our financial expectations,” a spokesperson for the retail giant told WGB.

In the past, Walmart has closed underperforming stores throughout the year. This year, however, the closures have been announced closer together, the spokesperson said.

“These decisions were not made lightly and were reached only after a thorough review process,” Walmart noted. “We have nearly 5,000 stores across the U.S. and, unfortunately, some do not meet our financial expectations. While our underlying business is strong, these specific stores haven’t performed as well as we hoped.”

Walmart confirmed the list of closures, which had been previously reported in other media outlets. Many of the listed stores have already closed, Walmart said, with others slated to shutter later this year. They are:

“There is no single cause for why a store closes—our decision is based on several factors, including historic and current financial performance, and is in line with the threshold that guides our strategy to close underperforming locations,” the Walmart spokesperson said.

Earlier this month, Walmart confirmed it would be laying off workers at its e-commerce fulfillment centers in select markets as the retail giant adapts to changing consumer behaviors.

Grocers in recent months, including Walmart, have expressed uncertainty about the remainder of 2023 and the year ahead as inflation persists, the threat of a recession remains in play and consumer behaviors continue to evolve amid three years of the pandemic.

Target this week confirmed it would close four underperforming stores later this spring.

Despite Walmart’s massive store footprint (the retailer often likes to note that it has a location within 10 miles of 90% of U.S. residents), the Bentonville, Arkansas-based company recently said its future exists outside of its brick-and-mortar stores.

Growing e-commerce channels, expanding its retail media business and developing its third-party seller revenue stream are all key to future growth plans, Walmart CFO John David Rainey said at an investor conference early this month.

“Today, the vast majority of our overall profits are attributable to in-store, brick-and-mortar in the U.S.,” Rainey said, according to a transcript from financial services site Sentieo. “If you fast forward five years, we are much less dependent on that as an income stream than some of these other faster-growing parts of our business.”

Walmart last month reported that its U.S. same-store sales rose 8.3%, or 13.9% on a two-year stacked basis, during the quarter ended Jan. 27. Grocery sales grew in the “high teens” during the period.

As of January 31, Walmart operated 5,317 retail locations in the U.S., including 3,572 Supercenters and 682 Neighborhood Markets.

Walmart this year shuttered its remaining pickup-only locations.

“We are constantly innovating and testing ways to meet and exceed customer expectations on pickup and delivery,” Walmart said in a statement to WGB in February. “While we don’t have any other independent pickup locations open to date beyond these, we’ve integrated learnings from these and other test-and-learn pilots from our existing stores. Walmart pickup is now offered from more than 4,570 locations, and same-day grocery delivery is offered from more than 3,550 stores.”