Big Lots! failure: Par-for-the-course, for U.S. national & local economies.

Some independent local Eastern Idaho news outlets reported, in October 2024, that the Pocatello Big-Lots! was being shutdown. That’s 14 years of overpriced ‘resale’ merchandise, having opened the Pocatello location (in the Foothill Plaza Shopping Center) at the end of October 2010.

Photo by AAron B. Hutchins, early October 2010.

I say ‘overpriced’ because a couple of months after opening, in 2010, I checked out the new store and was shocked to find their prices to be higher than the same items sold in the Chubbuck WalMart and the Kroger owned Pocatello Fred Meyer! That was the first and last time I ‘shopped’ at the Pocatello Big-Lots!

Here is video (during a windy day) of my tirade about the closure of the Pocatello Big-Lots!, 08FEB2025:

Big-Lots! is a ‘reseller’, other wise known as a discount retail chain store, reselling products that the main stream-first run retail stores couldn’t sell. In Ohio, in 1967, the business started out as Consolidated Stores. Consolidated made investments into such troubled operations as Delorean Motor Company, CVS Pharmacy, Pic-N-Save and KB Toys (just naming a few among other troubled investments). In 2001 Consolidated became Big Lots! In 2005 Big Lots! shutdown 170 stores. In 2023, Big Lots! shutdown 52 stores and announced plans to shutdown dozens of stores in 2024. In October 2024 Big Lots! filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy, and local news sources in Idaho reported that the Pocatello Big Lots! had made the latest hit list for shutdown. In December 2024 the Pocatello Big Lots! was closed permanently, on top of that Big Lots! announced that all stores would be shutdown or sold-off in 2025.

On 08FEB2025, in an attempt to take back control of their economy, the local population conducted a one day farmers market in the former Pocatello Big Lots! location. Maybe a massive Motorsports Complex (click this link to donate) will save our local economy: