GNC Closing Up To 900 Stores

GNC plans to close as many as 900 stores by the end of 2020, with the Pittsburgh-based health and wellness chain primarily looking to shutter many of its mall locations.

"The negative trends in traffic that we've seen in mall stores over thepast several years has accelerated during the past few quarters," CEO Ken Martindale told investors Monday, according to a conference call transcript. "As a result of the current mall traffic trends , it's likely that we will end up closer to the top end of our original optimization estimate of 700 to 900 store closures."

Martindale said the chain's strip center locations are relatively stable compared to mall locations. He also noted that 61 percent of GNC's existing store base is located in strip centers while only 28 percent of the stores are mall-based.

GNC has approximately 5,900 stores in the U.S., of which about 2,000 are smaller "stores-within-a-store" at Rite Aid locations.

GNC's decision is the latest bad news in what has been an already awful year for American retailers.

According to Coresight Research, year-to-date announced closures already have exceeded the total recorded for all of last year. So far in 2019, U.S. retailers have announced 7,426 store closures and 3,039 store openings. That compares to 5,864 closures and 3,258 openings for the full year 2018.

Coresight estimates that U.S. stores closures could reach 12,000 by the end of the year.

Retail analyst Nick Egelanian told Retail Dive that GNC "is facing up to the reality of the marketplace as the final chapter unfoleds in the death of the American everyday mall and we transition through the 'post-department store era.'"