R.I. Sam’s Club will shut doors
Wal-Mart will close 269 stores worldwide
WOONSOCKET – The Walmart Superstore at 7 Dowling Village Boulevard is not affected by Walmart decision to close 269 of its stores worldwide but area customers of the company’s Sam’s Clubs operations were not so fortunate.
Three of those operations in Rhode Island and nearby Massachusetts will be closed under the company’s announced plans.
The news Walmart would be tightening its operations with store closings affecting 16,000 of its employees, approximately 10,000 in the U.S.,
came through a company announcement made on Friday from its Bentonville, Arkansas, headquarters. The affected stores are expected to begin closing at the end of January.
The closings come after an “active review” of Walmart’s store portfolio the company announced last October it was making of its 11,600 stores worldwide under a process that took into account several factors such as financial performance and also a strategic alignment with the company’s long term planning.
The closings represent less than 1 percent of Walmart’s global square footage and related store revenue, according to the company.
“Actively managing our portfolio of assets is essential to maintaining a healthy business,” Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.,
President and CEO Doug McMillon said in a company statement.
“Closing stores is never an easy decision, but it is necessary to keep the company strong and positioned for the future. It’s important to remember that we’ll open well more than 300 stores around the world next year. So we are committed to growing, but we are being disciplined about it,” he said.
The announced closings include 154 locations in the United States, and 102 of those stores are the company’s new Walmart Express marketing experiment locations opened since 2011.
The company said it plans to focus on strengthening its Supercenter stores and optimizing Neighborhood Markets, the chain’s supermarket contender.
Walmart said 95 percent of the stores being closed under Friday’s announcement are within 10 miles of another company outlet.
The Bentonville, Arkansas, company said it is working to ensure that workers are placed in nearby locations.
In addition to the 102 Walmart Express locations, the store shutdowns include 23 Neighborhood Markets, 12 Supercenters, seven stores in Puerto Rico, six of its discount
centers and four Sam’s Clubs.
The Sam’s Clubs roll back will cause the most impact from the closing plan locally. On the closing list is the Sam’s Club store at 1110 Fall River Avenue in Seekonk, the Sam’s Club at 941 Grinnell St., Fall River, and the Sam’s Club at 25 Pace Boulevard off Bald Hill Road in Warwick. The fourth of the Sam’s Clubs to close is in Waterford, Missouri.
No Superstores in Rhode Island or nearby New England are included on the list. The Supercenter in North Smithfield was enjoying a normal business day on Friday, according to a manager who indicated comments on the company’s announcement would have to be made through its headquarters office.
The Dowling Village Walmart opened in September of 2011 as a smaller store in Woonsocket on Diamond Hill Road was closed. The Diamond Hill Road property has remained vacant since the closing although there was talk for a time about the possibility of it being converted to another Walmart operation.
The closest Sam’s Club available now to Rhode Island members of the large quantities membership store will be the Sam’s Club in Worcester at
1 Tobias Boland Way. The Worcester Sam’s Club can be reached at 508-852-7717.
A customer service representative at the Seekonk Sam’s Club confirmed the store’s closing and said members of the affected stores can go to the Sam’s Club website, samsclub.com/updatemembership, for options on how to receive an extension of their membership privileges while continuing to visit another Sam’s Club or the Sam’s Club website, or for a full refund of their membership fee. The last day to shop at a closing Sam’s is Feb. 5, according to the website and it also requests members to decide on their compensation by March 5.
As for the affected employees, Walmart’s announcement said it hopes to place affected associates at nearby operations. “Where that isn’t possible, the company will provide 60 days of pay and, if eligible, severance, as well as resume and interview skills training,” the company noted in the announcement. “Whether with Walmart or elsewhere, the company’s objective is to help all associates find their next job opportunity,” the company said.
“The decision to close stores is difficult and we care about the associates who will be impacted,” McMillon said.
“We invested considerable time assessing our stores and clubs and don’t take this lightly. We are supporting those impacted with extra pay and support, and we will take all appropriate steps to ensure they are treated well,” he added.
Walmart said it will continue to serve the shopping needs of U.S. customers in the markets affected by today’s announcement through other Walmart loca-tions and online at www.walmart.com.
Customers can find the nearest Walmart store through the store locator function on the company’s website.
Wal-Mart will now focus in the U.S. on supercenters, Neighborhood Markets, the e-commerce business and pickup services for shoppers.
The retailer said it also closed 60 loss-making locations in Brazil, which accounts for 5 percent of sales in that market. Wal-Mart, which operated 558 stores in Brazil before the closures, has struggled as the economy there has soured. Its Every Day Low price strategy has also not been able to break against heavy promotions from key rivals.