"Going Out Of Business" Sales are starting at Bon-Ton Stores across the country.
As WQAD News 8 first reported last week, Bon-Ton is closing all of its nearly 250 stores by the end of August, including the Younkers in both Davenport and Moline. Here are some of the other stores in our area that are closing.
In the meantime, we're finding out that the company faced a big dilemma that other retailers are dealing with as well. Investment Advisor Mark Grywacheski appears live on Good Morning Quad Cities every Monday and says Bon-Ton's situation is very similar to what happened to Toys "R" Us and it's not particularly surprising:
"[Bon-Ton] carried a massive debt and it failed to capture the shift to online sales," he explained. "The challenge with carrying a massive debt, as we saw with Toys "R" Us, is it takes a lot of cash to fund the principal and interest payments - cash that could have been used to advance its online platform and in-store sales strategies. And like Toys "R" Us, it needed a successful retail holiday shopping season to prove to potential buyers it could operate as a viable entity. Once this failed, its collapse was pretty much inevitable."
However, Grywacheski said the retail industry remains strong. To find out why, click here to see our full conversation on GMQC.