2018 was a rough year for many retailers. Here are the messiest stores we visited this year.
A New York City JCPenney was cluttered and disorganized when we visited over the summer. In November, JCPenney reported that comparable sales had dropped 5.4% in the most recent quarter.
The lines were very long, the lights were flickering, and sale signs were everywhere.
Lord & Taylor recently closed its flagship store on New York's Fifth Avenue after more than 100 years in business. When we visited the store before it closed, it was in sad shape.
Parent company Hudson's Bay, which also owns Saks Fifth Avenue, said it expected to close up to 10 of its nearly 50 Lord & Taylor locations through 2019. When we visited the flagship, we were surprised by how messy it was. There were clothes everywhere.
The flagship looked more like a discount store than a high-end retailer.
We visited several Toys R Us stores in New York before the chain closed its doors for good over the summer.
At each store, we found there were empty shelves and displays ...
... and boxes of merchandise piled up everywhere.
It was to be expected from stores that were in their final days.
This Babies R Us store was also in bad shape just a few days before it closed. On the first floor were half-empty shelves with remaining merchandise.
The second floor of the store was completely empty by the time we visited it.
And the third floor was selling store fixtures like tables, shelving, and baby mannequins. It was very strange.
Sears filed for bankruptcy in October, and when we visited a store in Jersey City, New Jersey, it felt like a ghost town.
There were no shoppers in the store, and many of the displays were lackluster.
We found some strange things, too, like a pile of bricks sitting in the middle of the store ...
... and boxes of merchandise left throughout.
This New York Kmart, also owned by Sears Holdings, was in worse shape than Sears, even before the company filed for bankruptcy.
We visited the same Kmart store multiple times throughout the year, and each time we found things like peeling-up floorboards ...
... damaged products for sale ...
... tons of clutter ...
... and even a gross bucket left sitting in an aisle.
There were several factors playing into these stores' struggles, but Kmart was in the worst shape by far.
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