After 100 years, Manny Moe & Jack are scrapping 100 retail stores quicker than a Ford Pinto owner.
Autozone, NAPA or Advance Auto Parts will end up becoming many motorheads’ go-to stores for car parts and accessories, now that Pep Boys owner Icahn Enterprises announced that it is shifting out of retail and solely focusing on tire sales and car repairs, closing 100 of its 1,000 locations.
Pep Boys, which has its roots in Philadelphia, will keep its tires and auto service departments, including the one on North Wales Road in Montgomery Township, which is poised to close all retail and auto parts departments Aug. 1.
Clearance sales up to 50 percent off have already hit some Pep Boys locations, including the North Wales store. Numerous Pep Boys stores have either closed, went up for sale, or, as was the case in California, were taken over by Advance Auto Parts, according to The Inquirer. Even its main headquarters on Allegheny Avenue in North Philadelphia was sold to real estate investors, per the article, yet it continues to rent space there.
To date, more than 100 of its 500-plus stores that billionaire Carl Icahn acquired in his $1 billion purchase in 2016 have been shuttered or sold, according to The Inquirer.
A Pep Boys spokeswoman told The Inquirer that there are more than 1,000 locations and 9,000 service bays in operation in the United States and Puerto Rico, and new ones are opening soon. Icahn Enterprises, however, is tight-lipped on how many retail stores remain in business.
Pep Boys lost $50 million in auto parts sales by March 2021, topping out at $276 million, according to The Inquirer, which was attributed to low-volume markets and the COVID-19 pandemic. Conversely, auto service demands increased by $13 million to $322 million by March 2021.
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