Kohl's Makes Moves To Shrink Floor Space At Half Its Stores
Kohl’s is making moves to reduce its brick-and-mortar footprint across the U.S.
The national department store chain has announced initiatives to downsize approximately half of its stores by the end of the year to put more focus on e-commerce initiatives and optimize operations, CoStar reports.
Like many other retailers, Kohl’s has suffered setbacks this year with disappointing sales in Q1 2017.
The company has 1,100 stores in its portfolio. An estimated 300 stores have already been retrofitted to fit the new, smaller layouts with approximately 200 more slated to be rightsized by the end of 2017.
“Our stores remain at the core of our omnichannel strategy and we will continue to invest in them by opening smaller formats, rightsizing and optimizing our selling space and working to ensure that shopping in our stores is an engaging and inspiring experience for our customers,” Kohl’s Chairman, CEO and President Kevin Mansell said in a release.
Kohl’s fifth e-commerce fulfillment center, a 937K SF facility, opened this month in Plainfield, Indiana. According to the release, the purpose of the center will be to process, fill and ship Kohls.com orders.
Kohl’s also announced plans to open four small-format stores in October. The 35K SF locations will be in North Smithfield, Rhode Island; Blue Ash, Ohio; East Windsor, New Jersey; and Montebello, California.
