  Over the last several years, several well-established and prominent
brick-and-mortar retail chains have ceased operations, raising concerns for
something that some have referred to as a retail apocalypse. While the demise
of brick-and-mortar is far from certain, scholars have attempted to model the
likelihood that a retailer is about to fail using different approaches. This
paper examines the failures of Bed Bath and Beyond, J.C. Penney, Rite Aid, and
Sears Holdings in the United States between 2013 and 2022. A model of retail
failure is presented that considers internal and external firm factors using
both annual report and macroeconomic data. The findings suggest that certain
revenue-based financial ratios and the annual average U.S. inflation rates are
statistically significant predictors of failure. Furthermore, the failure model
demonstrated that it can provide a nontrivial early warning signal at least the
year before failure. The paper concludes with a discussion and directions for
future research.
