SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — California-based 99 Cents Solely Shops mentioned Friday it’s going to shut all 371 of its retailers, ending the chain’s 42-year run of promoting an assortment of bargain-basement merchandise.
The corporate has shops throughout California, Arizona, Nevada and Texas that can start will promoting off their merchandise, in addition to fixtures, furnishings and gear.
Interim CEO Mike Simoncic mentioned in an announcement that the retailer has struggled for years on account of the COVID-19 pandemic, modifications in client demand, inflation and rising ranges of product “shrink” — a measure that encompasses losses from worker theft, shoplifting, harm, administrative errors and extra.
“This was a particularly troublesome resolution and isn’t the result we anticipated or hoped to attain,” mentioned Simoncic, who might be stepping down. “Sadly, the final a number of years have introduced vital and lasting challenges within the retail surroundings.”
The shuttering of 99 Cents Solely Shops comes after fellow low cost retailer Greenback Tree final month mentioned it was closing 1,000 shops.
99 Cents Solely Shops was based in 1982 by Dave Gold, who opened its first retailer in Los Angeles on the age of fifty, in accordance with his 2013 obituary within the Los Angeles Instances. Gold, who had been working at a liquor retailer owned by his father, discovered that marking down surplus gadgets to 99 cents brought about them to promote out “very quickly,” fueling his want to launch a brand new spin on the greenback retailer.
“I noticed it was a magic quantity,” he instructed the Instances. “I believed, wouldn’t or not it’s enjoyable to have a retailer the place all the pieces was good high quality and all the pieces was 99 cents?”
Disregarding doubting family and friends members, Gold solid forward. His concept caught on rapidly, even in middle-class and upscale neighborhoods, permitting the corporate to go public on the New York Inventory Alternate in 1996. It was later offered for roughly $1.6 billion in 2011.
Gold turned a multimillionaire however lived modestly. His household instructed the Instances he lived in the identical middle-class residence for almost 5 a long time together with his spouse of 55 years and drove the identical Toyota Prius he bought in 2000.
Whereas the chain initially offered most gadgets priced at 99 cents, in current a long time that turned untenable, though the corporate saved its trademarked title.
