List of Big Lots closures includes Minnesota, Wisconsin stores

Big Lots is moving to close hundreds of under-performing stores nationwide, including one store in Minnesota and seven in Wisconsin.

The company’s website shows closing sales are underway at the Albert Lea store and the Wisconsin stores in Fond Du Lac, La Crosse, Menomonee Falls, Mount Pleasant, Neenah, Sheboygan and West Bend.

Only one Minnesota store, located in Blaine, will remain open following the closure of the Albert Lea store, which opened less than two years ago.

The Columbus, Ohio-based discount retail chain currently operates over 1,389 stores nationwide , but up to 315 of those stores may be marked for closure. That's according to an amended credit agreement detailed in a recent regulatory filing .

In a statement in June , Bruce Thorn, the company's chief executive officer, said Big Lots is taking aggressive actions to drive sales growth in the latter part of 2024 and into 2025.

"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," he stated. "We remain focused on managing through the current economic cycle by controlling the controllables."

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