Big Lots Is Closing Next Month in Richland, WA

I couldn't believe the text. So, I called Big Lots in Richland. The store is closing.

Recently across social media I've been seeing texts shared that say "Your Local BIG LOTS Store will be closing".

I received a similar text several days ago, however, that text was regarding the store in Redlands, CA, which is where I lived previously. So when I saw and heard the news, I knew I had to investigate. A quick check of the Richland Big Lots website confirms the store is closing.

Get our free mobile app

I talked with a Big Lots employee who also confirmed it. The Big Lots at 1743 George Washington Way is tentatively scheduled to shut down operations on October 13th.

Recently, we learned of 12 Big Lots stores closing in Washington State. Today, that number of stores closing in Washington is 18. According to a report, at least 289 Big Lots stores are closing throughout the country. 8 stores in Oregon are closing, 73 stores in California, and 21 in Arizona are closing.

Financial Issues for retailer Big Lots

The company reported a net loss of $205 million for the first quarter of 2024. President and CEO of Big Lots Bruce Thorn stated:

While we made substantial progress on improving our business operations in Q1, we missed our sales goals due largely to a continued pullback in consumer spending by our core customers, particularly in high ticket discretionary items. We remain focused on managing through the current economic cycle by controlling the controllables. As we move forward, we're taking aggressive actions to drive positive comp sales growth in the latter part of the year and into 2025, and to maintain year-over-year gross margin rate improvements, all driven by progress on our five key actions.

Big Lots in Kennewick is remaining open at this time with no indication they will be closing.