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Advance Auto Parts announced it’ll be closing more than 700 stores by mid-2025, a move that will shrink its footprint by around 13%. The troubled retailer will exit five Western states—Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, and New Mexico—entirely. The company will also cut jobs, though it did not state how many.
One of the nation’s largest auto parts retailers, Advance Auto Parts operates more than 4,600 corporate-owned stores and 1000 independent stores in the US. It plans to close 523 Advance and Carquest stores, 204 independent locations, and four distribution centers. The closures mirror a broader retail trend: Chains closed more stores in 2024 than in any year since the pandemic hit in 2020, CNN reported.
Advance Auto Parts is trimming stores as part of a strategic plan as it looks to recover from a difficult 2023. Last year, the company’s full-year operating income declined by 82.9% to $114 million and its EPS plummeted from $7.65 to $0.50. It also reported a material weakness on its ICFR that year due to a shortage of accounting staff, and filed its 10-Q late, according to the Wall Street Journal. The company’s CFO departed in August 2023, in the wake of the filing issues.
But things weren’t looking up for the retailer this past quarter. It reported net sales of $2.1 billion, down 3.2% year-over-year, and its comparable sales declined 2.3% year over year. It set guidance of $8.4-$8.6 billion in sales for FY 2025, below the $10.79 billion analysts had expected, per the Wall Street Journal. During an earnings call president and CEO Shane O’Kelly attributed the weak quarter to “macro headwinds” and “economic uncertainty” dampening consumer demand. The Crowdstrike outage and Hurricane Helene also affected the retailer, which is headquartered in Raleigh, N.C.