Macy's will close 40 stores in 2016, according to CNN Money. The chain has not yet announced which stores will be closing or exactly when, but it will happen early next year.
Over the last five years, Macy's has closed 52 stores and opened 12 new locations. This year, Macy's will open six of their "Macy's Backstage" stores that sell discounted items. The 40 stores that will be closed make up about 5 percent of Macy's total stores, according to AJC.
All the stores that will close have been underperforming, a Macy's press release says, according to The Huffington Post. More department stores have closed their doors for good in recent years, largely due to competition from online retailers like Amazon.
"Each year, we prune some stores that are our weakest performers so that we can concentrate our resources on the best locations and maintain a strong physical presence...At the same time, we open a small number of new stores to fill gaps in our market coverage or where we have outstanding real estate opportunities," Macy's CEO Terry Lundgren said.
No date has been set for the closings, but Macy's has said it will notify all store employees before the locations are made public to the media.
