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GNC plans to close as many as 700 more of its vitamin stores in the second half of the year.
The struggling Pittsburgh-based retailer – which already closed 200 stores in the first half of the year – confirmed Monday that its store closures in 2019 will total as many as 900, Bisnow reported.
“The negative trends in traffic that we’ve seen in mall stores over the past several years accelerated during the past few quarters,” GNC CEO and chairman Ken Martindale said Monday during the company’s second-quarter earnings call.
GNC has about 4,100 U.S. locations selling vitamins and supplements, about 800 of them in malls.
In the long term, GNC could lower the number of mall locations to between 400 and 500, Tricia Tolivar, chief financial officer, said during Monday’s call.
GNC estimated earlier this year that it would close 700 to 900 stores by year-end, blaming a reduced number of shoppers at malls. So, the actual number of 2019 closures will be near the top of the projected range.
GNC’s revenue fell 13.5 percent to $534 million in the second quarter from $617.9 million in the same period last year. [Bisnow] – Mike Seemuth