Sam's Club is closing stores. AP

Walmart is abruptly closing 63 Sam's Club locations across the US, the company told Business Insider on Thursday. Some stores have already closed; others will close within weeks.

Many employees were not informed of the closings ahead of time.

Ten of the closed stores will be turned into e-commerce distribution centers.



Walmart is closing 63 Sam's Club stores across the US, the company told Business Insider on Thursday afternoon, after reports of abrupt store closings began to emerge.

The closings will impact about 9,400 employees, a Walmart official said.

In some cases, employees were not told their store had closed before showing up to work on Thursday. Those employees learned their store would be closing when they found the store's doors locked and a notice announcing the closing, Sam's Club workers told Business Insider. At some stores, employees were turned away by police officers.

Ten of the affected stores will be turned into e-commerce distribution centers, and employees of those stores will have the opportunity to reapply for positions at those locations, a Walmart official said.

The remaining stores will stay open for several weeks before closing permanently. All of the affected stores were scrubbed from the Sam's Club website on Thursday morning.

Sam's Club CEO John Furner notified employees of the closures in a company-wide email sent Thursday.

"After a thorough review, it became clear we had built clubs in some locations that impacted other clubs, and where population had not grown as anticipated," Furner said in the email. "We will be closing some clubs, and we notified them today. We'll convert some of them into eCommerce fulfillment centers - to better serve the growing number of members shopping with us online and continue scaling the SamsClub.com business."

Sam's Club membership fees - which cost $45 annually - will be refunded to customers affected by the closings, a Walmart official said.

The closings came on the same day Walmart announced plans to raise starting hourly wages to $11, expand employee benefits, and offer workers bonuses of up to $1,000.

Some Sam's Club employees were informed of the closings via notices that were sent through FedEx on Thursday.

"FedEx showed up at my door with a package from Sam's Club and I was thinking that maybe it was my W-2," Nic Townsend, an employee of a Sacramento, California Sam's Club, told Business Insider. "It was a letter saying they are closing down... I'm unsure of what to do I have a baby and a mentally sick mother. I'm lost. I'm heartbroken. I'm scared."

Shoppers were also stunned by the sudden closures.

"I went to the Orange, Connecticut location, and was shocked to learn from an employee, crying in the parking lot, that the club was closing permanently on the 26th and was closed the whole day today," Cynthia Garofalo told Business Insider on Thursday. "It really caught everyone off guard, especially the people that needed to pick up their prescriptions. What a mess."

Three of the closures are in hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico.

"The Barceloneta, Puerto Rico store closed without notice - over 950 people without jobs," Eliezer Cabrera, a Sam's Club shopper, told Business Insider. "This is the last thing Puerto Rico needed after Hurricane Maria devastated the island."

Here's a list of closings rounded up from local media reports and Sam's Club employees who contacted Business Insider. The list will be updated as we learn of additional locations.

8801 Old Seward Hwy, Anchorage, AK 99515

1074 N Muldoon Rd, Anchorage, AK 99504

48 College Rd, Fairbanks, AK 99701

3900 Grants Mill Rd, Irondale, AL 35210

2425 E Florence Blvd, Casa Grande, AZ 85194

5757 E State Route 69, Prescott Valley, AZ 86314

1375 S Arizona Ave, Chandler, AZ 85286

15255 N Northsight Blvd, Scottsdale, AZ 85260

3360 El Camino Ave, Sacramento, CA 95821

17835 Gale Ave, City of Industry, CA 91748

12540 Beach Blvd, Stanton, CA 90680

12920 Foothill Blvd, Sylmar, CA 91342

69 Pavilions Dr, Manchester, CT 06042

2 Boston Post Rd, Orange, CT 06477

355 FL-436, Fern Park, FL 32730

7233 N Seacrest Blvd, Lantana, FL 33462

5135 S Dale Mabry Hwy, Tampa, FL 33611

2994 Turner Hill Rd, Lithonia, GA 30038

501 N Randall Rd, Batavia, IL 60510

21430 S Cicero Ave, Matteson, IL 60443

6600 44th Ave, Moline, IL 61265

808 S Illinois Rte 59, Naperville, IL 60540

900 S Barrington Rd, Streamwood, IL 60107

1055 McHenry Rd, Wheeling, IL 60090

460 S Weber Rd, Romeoville, IL 60446

3015 W 86th St, Indianapolis, IN 46268

10859 E Washington St, Indianapolis, IN 46229

4024 Elkhart Rd #1, Goshen, IN 46526

9598 Cortana Pl, Baton Rouge, LA 70815

9750 Reisterstown Rd, Owings Mills, MD 21117

1 Tobias Boland Way, Worcester, MA 01607

340 E. Edgewood Boulevard, Lansing, MI 48911

32625 Northwestern Hwy, Farmington Hills, MI 48334

3745 Louisiana Ave S, St Louis Park, MN 55426

2800 27th Ave S, Moorhead, MN 56560

11 Batchelder Rd, Seabrook, NH 03874

81 International Dr S, Budd Lake, NJ 07828

1900 E Linden Ave, Linden, NJ 07036

301 Nassau Park Boulevard, Princeton, NJ 08540

2649 Erie Blvd E, Syracuse, NY 13224

720 Fairmount Ave, Jamestown, NY 14701

700 Elmridge Center Dr, Rochester, NY 14626

1600 Marketplace Dr, Rochester, NY 14623

5085 Dawn Dr, Lumberton, NC 28360

1101 Shiloh Glenn Dr, Morrisville, NC 27560

4825 Marburg Ave, Cincinnati, OH 45209

9570 Fields Ertel Rd, Loveland, OH 45140

1145 Carr 2, Bo Florida Afuera, Barceloneta, 00617, Puerto Rico

Carr 830, Bayamón, Puerto Rico, 00957

Carr 3 Km 82 Bo Junquitos, Humacao, 00741, Puerto Rico

615 Old Hickory Blvd, Nashville, TN 37209

1805 Getwell Rd, Memphis, TN 38111

1615 S Loop W, Houston, TX 77054

13331 Westheimer Rd, Houston, TX 77077

22296 Market Place Dr, New Caney, TX 77357

12919 San Pedro Ave, San Antonio, TX 78216

741 E Little Creek Rd, Norfolk, VA 23518

4571 S Laburnum Ave, Richmond, VA 23231

901 S Grady Way, Renton, WA 98057

1101 Outlet Collection Way, Auburn, WA 98001

13550 Aurora Ave N, Seattle, WA 98133

7050 Watts Rd, Madison, WI 53719

1540 S 108th St, West Allis, WI 53214

If you know of stores closing that are missing from this list, reach out to hpeterson@businessinsider.com.

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