After Nearly 200 Years, Lord & Taylor Goes Out Of Business

FILE - In this Jan. 2, 2019 file photo, a woman, who declined to give her name, pauses to take a photo of a sign outside Lord & Taylor's flagship Fifth Avenue store which closed its doors for good after a months-long blowout sale, in New York. Lord & Taylor, one of the country’s oldest department stores, is going out of business after filing for bankruptcy earlier this month. It will close its remaining 38 stores and shut down its website, the company said Thursday, Aug. 27, 2020. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens, File)

Lord & Taylor, one of the country’s oldest department store chains, is going out of business after filing for bankruptcy earlier this month.

The retailer was sold just a year ago for $100 million to Le Tote, a San Francisco online clothing rental company, by Canadian parent Hudson’s Bay Co.

Lord & Taylor will permanently close its remaining 38 stores and shut down its website, the company said Thursday. It is currently holding going out of business sales in stores and online.

Founded as a dry goods store in 1826, Lord & Taylor has struggled for years as more people shop online and in other stores. But the pandemic has changed the way people shop, accelerated the shift to online shopping, mostly to the benefit of big retailers like Amazon, Target and Walmart.

Since COVID-19 began to spread in the U.S, several clothing sellers have gone bankrupt, including Brooks Brothers, Neiman Marcus and J.C. Penney.

Lord & Taylor was shrinking even before the pandemic.

Last year, it closed its 11-story flagship store on New York’s Fifth Avenue, which it owned for more than a century. Amazon.com, the online shopping giant, is turning the building into an office for its tech workers.

(AP)