Next RadioShack? Here Are The Most Troubled Retail Stores Last week, RadioShack filed for bankruptcy and announced it would shut down some 1,100 stores by the end of the month. While the 94-year-old company is an American household brand, the outcome is not surprising – sales had been shrinking for years before the company’s final downfall.
The electronics retailer is not alone, as brick-and-mortar chains have faced a struggle in recent years. To identify companies who may be stuck in a similar plight, FORBES looked at overall same store sales growth – one of the most important metrics for the retail industry. We screened publicly-traded U.S. retailers with more than $1 billion in sales and ranked them based on the average of overall same store sales growth in the four most recent fiscal quarters.
radio shack chart
The top of our list is telling: with an average 16.6% quarterly drop, RadioShack has the highest decline in same store sales over the past year. In fact, the company’s same store sales have been in the red for 8 out of last 10 quarters, even as it lost about 2,000 stores of its more than 7,300 in 2011.
Cabela’s Inc., the retail giant of hunting, fishing and related outdoor goods, ranked second-worst with an average 14.4% same store sales decline over the past 4 quarters. That’s followed by a few other struggling retailers including Aeropostale (-13%), hhgregg (-9.5%), Abercrombie & Fitch (-7.3%), and American Eagle (-5.3%). All three once-popular teen clothing chains have had trouble adjusting to changing styles.
While other retailers aren’t doing quite so poorly, investors should keep an eye on consumer electronic retailer Best Buy BBY +2.4%. Like RadioShack and the aforementioned hhgregg, Best Buy faces a challenging climate for technology sales. Luckily, its same store sale decline was limited to an average of 1% in the past year. Other retailers, such as Barnes & Nobles with an average quarterly decline of 2%, are also having a rough time –even as their situation remains less dire than RadioShack’s.
While our list excluded companies that do not report overall same store sales growth, a few other companies deserve some serious skepticism. For example, luxury retailer Coach COH +0.61% reported an average same store sales decline of 21.1% in the U.S. over the past year. Sears, another well-known brand that saw 9.2% of net sales decline in 2013, had an average of 2.1% drop in same store sales in the most recent four quarters – not a very encouraging sign amid its supposed turnaround plan.
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