How Long Does it Take Store Shelves to Empty?

The Sudden Closure of 99 Cents Only Stores Nationwide

So yesterday before my daughter got out of school and my three nieces came from the hotel room, the six or seven times Covid jabbed roommate Paul needed a ride some places. Ever the TV watcher, doing the hard work that you couldn’t pay me to do, he broke the news to me shortly after noon.

“The 99 Cents Only Stores are closing all over the country. I just heard on the news.” He told me.

“Oh really?”

Yes, really. According to this 8 local news article:

LAS VEGAS (KLAS) – The retail store 99 Cents Only began its liquidation sale on Friday as it plans to shutter all of its nearly 400 stores by June.

There are 10 locations in southern Nevada and more than a dozen across the Silver State.

Shoppers notice prices rising at Las Vegas discount stores

Employees told 8 News Now they’re shocked by the closure. They said they were notified on Thursday that they would have to find a new job in a few weeks.

Customers will have one less option to get affordable items.

“I think some people on fixed incomes, it’s very, very nice for them to have it,” Jan Urioste said leaving the Boulder City location. “It’s affordable, you know, so I was devastated to hear that it was closing.”

That was the general sentiment from customers leaving the Boulder City store.

“I was sad, it’s one of only two places to buy food or anything,” Michael Black said.

The other option for those in Boulder City is Albertson’s.

“We need something. We got a lot of new restaurants coming into town, new businesses. But, we’re losing businesses at the same time too,” Barbara Krause said.

An employee tells 8 News Now they plan to close either in June or when they get rid of inventory. They won’t be receiving any new items.

Now we have a 99 Cents Only Store close to our house in Las Vegas and Paul, having just cashed his VA check, wanted to go there right away afterwards. Just an hour after the announcement was made the store was packed and everything was already 30% off. Paul waited in line to check out his items for over one hour.

I don’t know the reason exactly for this very sudden dramatic closure. At first I thought it would be like a KMart style corporate bankruptcy with a slow wind down. It doesn’t look that way.

I’ll be going back there today to see how many items are left on the shelves. If this is a sign of things to come how long does it take for those shelves to empty if the delivery trucks stop coming?

I’m going to try to find out…

Buy me a ko-fi