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120-year-old furniture chain to shut all 380 US stores in weeks - but will clear stock with massive bargains first
Badcock Home Furniture & More, a retailer based throughout the southern US, announced Tuesday it would be closing every single one of its stores.
The 120-year old chain is owned by Conn's, which fell into bankruptcy just last week thanks to nearly $2 billion of debt and lots of overhead costs - much of which were associated with the acquisition of Badcock last year.
Badcock has over 380 stores in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Virginia.
It's not clear when exactly they will shutter, but the home goods company advertised a 'going out of business sale,' where nearly all items in stores and online are discounted by 30 to 50 percent.
Conn's said it may be necessary to close 'some, all, or a significant number of store locations' in order to gain liquidity and maximize the value of the bankruptcy estate, according to the July 23 filing.
Badcock has over 380 stores in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Virginia, all of which are closing at an unspecified date
Conn's has closed 71 stores that bear its name, leaving just over 100 locations still operating.
To liquidate its inventory, furniture at Badcock stores are marked down by up to 50 percent. Bedding and electronics are up to 40 percent off, while appliances are 30 percent off.
With Badcock going under, Conn's has shut down 451 of its 553 stores, meaning that over four in five of its locations will soon be gone.
Conn's and Badcock stores employ about 3,800 full-time and 150 part-time.
Headquartered in The Woodlands, Texas, Conn's has been around in some form for 134 years.
First, it was a plumbing and heating company and in 1933 Carroll Wayne Conn, Sr. acquired the store, giving Conn's its modern day namesake.
The store first waded into retail with refrigerators in 1937, but nowadays it sells everything from home appliances to TVs to furniture and much more.
For years now, Conn's struggled with growing brick-and-mortar footprint.
That led to it buying Badcock in December 2023 as a last-ditch effort to increase sales and keep the business afloat.
It didn't work.
In an April disclosure, Conn's announced it finished out 2023 with a year-over-year net loss of almost $77 million.
Conn's shares have been in free fall for over three years, down an astonishing 98 percent since June 2021. Following the bankruptcy, the stock cratered even more, now sitting at around $0.34 per share.
To liquidate its inventory, furniture at Badcock stores, pictured, are marked down by up to 50 percent. Bedding and electronics are up to 40 percent off, while appliances are 30 percent off
Conn's has appeared to struggle with its growing brick-and-mortar footprint, culminating in the Badcock acquisition in December 2023 that has saddled the company with debt and high overhead costs, Bloomberg reported
DailyMail.com approached Conn's for comment on the newest spate of closures and the ongoing bankruptcy but didn't receive an immediate response.
The most recent woes Conn's and its subsidiary Badcock are facing come amid a widespread 'retail apocalypse' that is seeing bricks-and-mortar stores struggle to combat rampant theft and increasingly tight margins.
By the end of April, US retailers had announced the closure of almost 2,600 stores in 2024.
Walmart, the largest retailer in the US, has shut 11 so far this year.
Earlier in April, dollar store 99 Cents Only said it will shutter ALL its 371 shops, while Best Buy closed ten in March.
Dollar Tree is closing 1,000, Macy's 150 - a third of its total - and drug store Rite Aid 77.
In recent months, there has been a spate of bankruptcies adding to store closures.
Express - a mall staple - filed for bankruptcy in April and said it would shut 95 Express outlets alongside all of its UpWest stores.
At the start of May, Rue21 - the teen fashion chain that is a fixture in malls across America - also said it will shut all its 543 US stores.