Narrator: In the last 10 years, the retail apocalypse
has taken out a lot of once beloved brands.
Reporter: Close 53 stores this year.
News Anchor: Where are the teenagers shopping today?
Narrator: While some of these companies' futures
remain unclear, others are completely dead.
Here are 10 companies that fell in the past decade.
Payless was once the largest family-owned footwear chain
in the United States.
The company peaked in the 1990s,
selling 250 million shoes a year.
Its self-service strategy
had customers shop for shoes themselves,
allowing the company to employ fewer people
and save on operating costs.
Plus, with most shoes costing $3 or less
when it launched in the '50s, about $25 today,
Payless was a bargain compared to other retailers.
But Payless didn't count on competition
from discount retailers like Target and Walmart,
which quickly rose in popularity throughout the 2000s.
And once online retailers like Zappos began to dominate,
Payless' sales struggled.
In 2017, Payless officially filed for bankruptcy.
Two years later, the company filed again
and announced that it would close all of its stores.
At its height in 2004, Blockbuster employed 60,000 people.
With more than 9,000 locations globally,
the movie rental giant was worth about $5 billion.
But a mix of bad leadership and competition from Netflix,
Redbox, and video on demand spelled the end for Blockbuster.
In 2010, it filed for bankruptcy with $1 billion in debt.
At the time, it was the last remaining
video rental chain in the US.
In 2011, Dish Network acquired
Blockbuster's remaining assets for about $320 million
and two years later,
Dish began closing all remaining stores in the US.
But there's still one store left.
A privately owned Blockbuster in Bend, Oregon
is the last remaining in the world and still going strong.
Recent nostalgia for '80s and '90s brands
has renewed interest in Blockbuster.
In 2019, apparel brand Dumbgood
released a collection of Blockbuster-themed merchandise
and hosted pop-up shops in Los Angeles and New York City.
Borders was an international book retailer
headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
A book behemoth, Borders and its Waldenbooks subsidiary
had locations in airports, outlet malls,
and shopping plazas.
But the retailer made a huge mistake
when it prioritized expanding its brick-and-mortar stores
instead of its online presence.
Plus, Borders didn't have an e-reader
as popular as Barnes & Nobles' Nook or Amazon's Kindle
to keep the company alive in the digital age.
In 2011, Borders filed for bankruptcy.
At the time, it had 650 stores.
The last store was liquidated and closed in September 2011.
As a final nail in the coffin,
that same year, Barnes & Noble
purchased Borders' customer list and trademark.
At one point, Sports Authority
was the largest retailer for sporting goods in the US.
But as the decade continued,
it just couldn't match competition
from the higher-end Dick's Sporting Goods
and they couldn't keep up with online purchases
made on Amazon or directly with sports leagues.
In March 2016, Sports Authority filed for bankruptcy
with a huge debt load.
It had 14,500 employees at the time.
That same year, the chain closed
all of its stores nationwide.
Founded in 2004, Charming Charlie
was a mainstay of American malls in the 2000s.
At its height, the accessories chain
had almost 400 stores around the world.
But by 2017, it fell victim
to what the chief financial officer called
the "continuing decline of physical consumer traffic."
It filed for bankruptcy and closed 100 stores.
After a successful financial restructuring,
the company emerged from bankruptcy in 2018.
But it wasn't enough.
A year later, Charming Charlie filed again,
saying it only had $6,000 in cash left.
The company stopped website sales
and announced it would be closing all of its 260 stores.
The high-end children's clothing brand
started the decade off great,
with 950 stores across the US in 2010.
But that year things turned sour.
A private equity firm bought Gymboree for $1.8 billion.
The new leadership quickly opened 400 stores overseas.
But that rapid expansion just wasn't sustainable.
Spread too thin, the company filed for bankruptcy
in June 2017 and closed 375 stores.
Gymboree took the chance to reorganize
and came out of bankruptcy in September 2017,
after shaving $1 billion in debt.
But it didn't stick.
Sales from The Children's Place, Gap,
and TJ Maxx far outpaced Gymboree's.
The company could no longer support
its "cost and capital structure."
In 2019, Gymboree filed for bankruptcy again
and began closing all of its 800 stores.
In March of that year, rival retailer
The Children's Place bought the Gymboree brand.
Founded in 1859 in New York,
A&P was the largest grocery store chain in the US
from 1915 to 1975.
A&P was able to offer lower prices
than traditional grocery stores by purchasing large amounts
of inventory from manufacturers.
It further cut costs by getting into manufacturing directly,
allowing the company to control
nearly all aspects of the grocery business.
However, by the 1970s, A&P's stores were outdated
compared to its competitors,
who were opening up even larger supermarkets
with modern features.
Over the next few decades,
specialized grocery brands like Whole Foods and Trader Joe's
began to dominate the grocery market.
After failing to keep up with new trends
and connect with consumers,
A&P found itself with a reputation for poor customer service
and high operating costs.
And the Great Recession further tanked
A&P's already falling sales.
In 2010, the chain filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy,
but it emerged as a private company
that briefly became profitable until 2014.
But sales fell again,
and the company reported a loss of $305 million
for its 2014 fiscal year.
A&P filed for bankruptcy a second time
and closed all of its stores.
Wow Air became popular after its inception in 2011
for offering ultra-cheap flights
from the US to Europe, often for less than $200.
In 2018, the Icelandic airline
employed more than 1,000 people, had 11 aircraft,
and transported about 3.5 million passengers.
However, the budget airline struggled with profitability,
likely because of a combination of rising fuel costs
and a decrease in tourist visits to Iceland in recent years.
On March 28th, 2019, Wow Air suddenly announced
it was ceasing all operations,
leaving hundreds of passengers stranded.
CEO Skuli Mogensen confirmed that over 1,000 people
would be impacted.
Wow Air once flew in over 1/4 of all visitors to Iceland
and after its unexpected shutdown,
Iceland saw a notable decline in its tourism industry
and an increase in unemployment.
Henri Bendel founded his namesake store in 1895,
and the brand and retailer became a pioneer
in the world of luxury fashion.
Bendel is credited as the person
who first sold Coco Chanel's designs in the US
and the person who discovered Andy Warhol.
And thanks to Jackie Kennedy,
the Henri Bendel flagship store in New York
has landmark status.
Bendel's was acquired by L Brands in 1985
and continued setting the standard
for luxury retailers everywhere,
becoming the first retailer to host in-store makeovers
and in-store fashion shows.
However, L Brands announced in September 2018
it would be closing all 23 Henri Bendel stores
and ending the brand to improve company profitability
and focus on larger brands
that have greater growth potential.
The 124-year-old brand had ceased to be relevant
to consumers, and it showed.
Despite its once iconic status,
Henri Bendel lost more than $45 million
in operating costs in 2018.
Toys R Us began as a single store in 1948
and grew to become the first big box toy store.
Its growth coincided with the rise of iconic toys
like Barbie dolls and Mr. Potato Head,
as well as TV commercials,
which helped build Toys R Us' highly successful brand.
Commercial: Toys R Us time of year.
Toys R Us.
Narrator: Thanks to Toys R Us,
the toy industry's worth grew from $500 million in 1950
to $12 billion in 1990.
At its peak, the company controlled
a quarter of the global toy market
and was selling 18,000 different toys
in over 1,000 different stores.
But thanks to a combination of changing tastes in toys,
going private in 2005, a failed buyout,
its stores becoming dated,
and the eventual rise of e-commerce,
Toys R Us began to struggle.
Competition from big box stores like Walmart
and Target quickly overtook Toys R Us,
hurting the once dominant retailer's already shaky sales.
However, the biggest factor behind its demise
was Toys R Us' growing debt.
Over the years, Toys R Us owed more and more money
and ended up devoting much of its resources
towards paying off that debt
until finally declaring bankruptcy in 2017.
At the time, Toys R Us owed more than $5 billion.
However, Toys R Us isn't completely gone.
Tru Kids Brands purchased the company's assets
in October 2018 and announced plans to bring back the brand.
In November 2019, Toys R Us opened a new retail store
in Paramus, New Jersey.
While we've seen a lot of iconic companies
fall in the 2010s, our eyes are on the struggling brands
that might just make a comeback in the coming decade.