Beloved fabrics and crafts retail chain closing 500 stores within months

Fabrics and crafts retail chain Joann is shuttering more than half of its 800 locations across the US in the months to come.

About 500 stores will close across all 50 states as Joann deals with bankruptcy.

‘This was a very difficult decision to make, given the major impact we know it will have on our team members, our customers and all of the communities we serve,’ a Joann spokesperson told CNN on Wednesday.

The spokesperson added that ‘right-sizing our store footprint is a critical part of our efforts to ensure the best path forward’.

Joann did not disclose a list of all the closing locations.

But court documents show that stores will close in every state, with the highest number in California, Florida, Indiana, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania and Washington.

Joann in January declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy for the second time in less than a year, stating that it faced ‘acute and unexpected’ inventory issues.

It previously disclosed that it had an ‘unexpected ramp-down, and, in some cases, the entire cessation of production’ of some items.

Joann first filed for bankruptcy in March of last year, but several weeks later came out as a private company and managed to continue to operate all of its locations.

It comes as Coresight Research projected that store closures this year will be double the figure in 2024. Last year, 7,325 stores closed and the group has forecast that 15,000 will shutter in 2025.

In December, the largest party supply chain in America, Party City, announced that it would close all of its more than 700 stores and franchises across North America. The company filed for bankruptcy in January 2023 amid a $1.7billion debt it could not pay off.

And in January, department store giant Macy’s said it would close 66 locations across 22 states as part of its Bold New Chapter initiative that involves investing in newly formatted stores instead.

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