Sioux Falls Payless stores to close amid national liquidation

Payless ShoeSource locations in Sioux Falls are scheduled to close as the national chain ends online sales and prepares to liquidate products and shutter about 2,500 locations in the United States and Canada.

All Payless locations in South Dakota are owned directly by the Topeka, Kansas-based corporation and will close in the financial fallout of the retailer’s second bankruptcy declaration since 2017.

Store closings are scheduled to begin in March, with some stores staying open through May, according to a press release from the company. The discount shoe retailer has already halted online sales.

More:Payless liquidation sale prices: What you need to know about store closing sales

“The challenges facing retailers today are well documented, and unfortunately Payless emerged from its prior reorganization ill-equipped to survive in today’s retail environment,” Stephen Marotta, the company’s Chief Restructuring Officer said in an online statement.

Marotta was appointed to his role in January.

Employees at Sioux Falls-based locations declined to say when the local stores will close, instead providing a phone number for Payless' corporate office. The phone number went to an error message. 

The company will have nationwide liquidation sales as its stores prepare to close. 

Payless ShoeSource filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy this week in the Eastern District of Missouri.

About 370 international franchise stores will be spared, along with 420 company-owned Payless locations.

Payless ShoeSource closed hundreds of stores in 2017, including a location in Sioux Falls, but the company was still left with “too much remaining debt, too large a store footprint and a yet-to-be realized systems and corporate overhead structure consolidation,” Marotta said in his statement.