Kohl's struggling with lower sales, job cuts and store closings. Here's an update

Kohl’s struggling with lower sales, job cuts and store closings. Here’s an update

Posted by author January 29, 2025 Jobs

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Just one month into the new year and it’s already been a rough one for Kohl’s Corp.

On Tuesday the company announced it was eliminating roughly 10% of the positions at the headquarters. That comes a few weeks after Kohl’s announced it was closing 27 stores in 15 states and its e-commerce distribution center in San Bernardino, Calif.

The Menomonee Falls-based retailer has been struggling to maintain a customer base and adapt to changing shopping trends. It’s also seen its stock price drop 52% in the last 12 months.

The company has also been building partnerships with other companies and has been experimenting with the store layout to drive sales.

Here are some of the recent developments at Kohl’s:

Kohl’s job cuts mostly focused at corporate headquarters

The layoffs at the headquarters and closures is just part of some of the reductions that have taken place.

In 2024, Kohl’s announced it was cutting “a few dozen” jobs in its credit department.

In 2023, the company cut 60 jobs from the Kohl’s headquarters.

Kohl’s to close 27 stores in 15 states

Kohl’s is closing 27 underperforming stores in 15 states by April of this year and its e-commerce distribution center in San Bernardino. None of the stores are in Wisconsin. The company operates about 1,150 stores nationwide.

The decision was announced roughly a week before the new CEO took over.

Ashley Buchanan is Kohl’s third CEO in four years

If Kohl’s is going to become more profitable as a company, it’ll be in part because of the new CEO, Ashley Buchanan, who started as CEO in January 2025.

Before coming to Kohl’s, Buchanan was CEO of Michael’s Company for four years and before that was an executive with Walmart and Sam’s Club for 13 years.

Buchanan succeeded Tom Kingsbury who was initially appointed interim-CEO in December 2022 and became the full-time CEO in February 2023. Before becoming CEO, Kingsbury was appointed to the Kohl’s board of directors by activist investors in 2021.

Before Kingsbury, Michelle Gass served as CEO of Kohl’s from 2018 to 2022 when she stepped down from the role to become CEO of Levi Strauss and Company.

Kohl’s expanded partnerships with Sephora, Babies ‘R’ Us

In recent years Kohl’s has leaned heavily on its partnership with Sephora which started in late 2020. In the last four years the company has essentially put Sephora into each of its roughly 1,150 stores.

In earnings calls the company has talked about how the partnership has created roughly $1.4 billion in sales and expect it to be a $2 billion business this year.

Under Kingsbury, Kohl’s announced a partnership with Babies ‘R’ Us in 2024. The company has started rolling out 200 Babies ‘R’ Us at Kohl’s stores in an effort to gain younger customers with growing families.

Quarter after quarter of declining sales

Eliminating positions, changing CEOs, making new partnerships doesn’t matter if people aren’t coming into the stores to buy things. This is the biggest problem Kohl’s has despite the company posting profits.

Kingsbury was not able to have one quarter with an increase in sales during his two years as CEO.

The fourth quarter of 2021 was Kohl’s’ last reported a sales increase, which came under Gass and when the company was recovering from the 2020 pandemic. Then it posted a 5.8% sales increase for the quarter and nearly 23% sales increase compared to the previous year.

But since then, sales have been sinking.

Store layout changes, bringing back jewelry and expanding dresses

I hopes of boosting sales, some departments were moved around.

In 2024, the juniors department was moved to the front of the store near Sephora, hoping for more crossover sales opportunities.

Last year the company saw the early signs of a potentially serious trend: sales in its women’s clothing departments “went backwards.”

The company has since expanded its space for dresses in the front of 700 stores in hopes to reverse that trend.

And to make room for Sephora, Kohl’s got rid of most of its jewelry. Last year the company realized that was a mistake and has been trying to create more space for a dedicated jewelry section.