Auto Parts Chain With 156 Illinois Spots To Close 700-Plus Stores

If you've been keeping track, this is far from the first time that we've told you about a major company with hundreds or thousands of locations across the country making an announcement that they're going to close stores and let workers go. This has been a regular happening over the last four years, and there will be more companies doing it.

The reasons are often cut and pasted between the companies that are doing the closings. The phrases you've heard the most during times of store closures are:

• In the midst of a multi-year turnaround plan to save the business
• Improving the company's overall financial health
• Improving worker productivity
• Staving off impending bankruptcy
• Getting rid of non-profitable stores

Now, a company with 4,781 locations across the United States and 156 in Illinois (as of October 5, 2024) has announced that over 700 of those spots will be closing by the middle of next year.

Advance Auto Parts Announced That They Would Be Closing 523 Corporate Stores, 204 Independent Locations, And 4 Distribution Centers

I mentioned the reasons that are often given when closing announcements are made, and this is no different. Advance Auto Parts says that this is a “strategic plan to improve business performance.” Advance Auto Parts stock is down 30% year-to-date.

Here in the Midwest, there's no shortage of Advance Auto Parts locations...for now at least. As of early October of this year, Advance Auto Parts had 156 Illinois locations, 38 locations in Iowa, and 42 Wisconsin stores.

So far there's been no word on which locations in Illinois are going to be facing closure, which the company hopes to accomplish by the middle of 2025, but there is some talk of closing at least 6 locations in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

CNN:

Major retailers have announced 6,189 store closures so far this year, already outpacing last year’s total of 5,553, according to Coresight Research. Chains are on track to close the highest number of stores in 2024 than in any year since 2020, when the pandemic decimated businesses.