Brick-and-mortar retail is a tough business.
One day, your favorite brand can be riding high and enjoying strong sales from loyal customers, while the next it's fighting for survival and fending off creditors.
Here's a look back at some of the retail brands whose stores once greeted thousands of people each day, but are now consigned to retail's history books — or exist only online or as a tiny fraction of what they once were.
[Warner Bros. Studio Store sold merch from Loony Toons and DC Comics. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images]
Warner Bros. Studio Store competed with the Disney store until the company closed all of its locations in 2001.
[Ames Department Store once had more than 700 locations. Wikimedia]
Debt and poor sales forced Ames Department Store into bankruptcy twice., and in 2002, the remaining Ames stores closed
[Tower Records was one of the largest record stores in the 1990s. Getty Images]
Tower Records couldn't keep up with the rise of digital music, and all stores in the US were closed in 2006.
[Mervyn's was a California-based department store founded in 1949. Ben Margot/AP]
Mervyn's once had almost 200 locations in the western US. In 2008, the company declared bankruptcy and closed all of its stores.
[Limited Too, The Limited's children's store, launched in 1987. Associated Press]
Limited Too's success began dwindling in the early 2000s, and all stores were eventually rebranded as Justice by 2008.
[Circuit City had 567 stores in 2008. Getty Images]
Circuit City filed for bankruptcy in 2008 and shuttered all stores the following Spring.
[Filene's Basement was an off-price store that started in Filene's and eventually grew to 20 locations. Getty Images]
Filene's Basement's parent company went bankrupt in 2009, and by 2011 all of its stores were closed.
[Babies R Us before it closed. Jessica Tyler/Business Insider]
Toys R Us and its subsidiaries closed in 2018, but in 2021 Macy's announced that it would open Toys R Us sections in hundreds of its stores, while Babies R Us is opening within Kohl's stores across the US.
[Papyrus greeting cards are still available at retailers like Target. Geri Lavrov/Contributor/Getty Images]
At its peak in 2009, Papyrus had 500 stores across the US and Canada, but the company ultimately filed for bankruptcy and closed its 254 stores in 2020.
[Lord & Taylor was once America's oldest department store. Jessica Rinaldi/The Boston Globe via Getty Images]
Lord & Taylor filed for bankruptcy in 2020, leading to the closure of its 38 stores. An attempt at reviving the brand as a "digital collective" was unsuccessful.
To read about more once-beloved stores that no longer have a meaningful brick-and-mortar presence, head to Business Insider.
