A Walmart Neighborhood Market on 124th St. in Wauwatosa that opened in 2012 is among four Milwaukee area stores to be closed among 269 in the United States and Latin America. Credit: Journal Sentinel files

By

Wal-Mart is closing 269 stores, including four in the Milwaukee area.

The Wisconsin stores to be closed include a Walmart Express store in Milwaukee at 5825 W. Hope Ave., and Walmart Neighborhood Markets at 3850 N. 124th St. in Wauwatosa, N88-W15559 Main St. in Menomonee Falls and S14-W22605 Coral Drive in Waukesha.

The stores being shuttered across the United States and Latin America account for a fraction of the company's 11,000 stores worldwide and less than 1% of its global revenue.

More than 95% of the stores set to be closed in the U.S. are within 10 miles of another Walmart. The Bentonville, Ark.-based company said it is working to ensure that workers are placed in nearby locations.

The store closures will start at the end of the month. The closures will collectively affect approximately 16,000 employees, including about 10,000 in the U.S.

The announcement comes three months after Wal-Mart Stores Inc. CEO Doug McMillon told investors that the world's largest retailer would review its fleet of stores with the goal of becoming more nimble in the face of increased competition from all fronts, including from online rival Amazon.com.

"No doubt our business has become both large and broad," McMillon told analysts in October. "It is more important now than ever that we evaluate our portfolio."

Wal-Mart operates 4,500 stores in the U.S. Its global workforce is 2.2 million, 1.4 million in the U.S. alone.

Wal-Mart has warned that its earnings for the fiscal year starting next month will be down as much as 12% as it invests further in online operations and pours money into improving customers' experience.

Of the closures announced Friday, 154 locations will be in the U.S., including the company's 102 smallest-format stores called Wal-Mart Express, which were opened as a test in 2011. Wal-Mart Express marked the retailer's first entry into the convenience store arena. The stores are about 12,000 square feet and sell essentials such as toothpaste. But the concept never caught on as the stores served the same purpose as Wal-Mart's larger Neighborhood Markets: fill-in trips and prescription pickups.

Also covered in the closures are 23 Neighborhood Markets, 12 supercenters, seven stores in Puerto Rico, six discount stores and four Sam's Clubs.

Wal-Mart will now focus in the U.S. on supercenters, Neighborhood Markets, the e-commerce business and pickup services for shoppers.

The retailer is closing 60 loss-making locations in Brazil, which account for 5% of sales in that market. Wal-Mart, which operated 558 stores in Brazil before the closures, has struggled as the economy there has soured. Its Everyday Low Prices strategy also has not been able to break against heavy promotions from key rivals.

The remaining 55 stores are spread elsewhere in Latin America.

Wal-Mart said it is still sticking to its plan announced last year to open 50 to 60 supercenters, 85 to 95 Neighborhood Markets and seven to 10 Sam's Clubs in the U.S. during the fiscal year that begins Feb. 1. Outside the U.S., Wal-Mart plans to open 200 to 240 stores.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Commerce Department said Friday that retail sales dipped a seasonally adjusted 0.1% in December to $448.1 billion after having climbed a solid 0.4% in November.

The report shows consumer tastes shifting toward restaurants and online shopping. The extra savings from falling gas costs have yet to fuel large spending gains in other retail categories. Still, some economists viewed the sales data as a positive reflection of the 2.9 million jobs added in 2015.

Sales fell in December at clothing, electronics outlets and general merchandise stores. But those declines were largely offset by spending at restaurants, online retailers, furnishers and sporting goods and building supply stores.

Bricklin Dwyer, an economist at the bank BNP Paribas, suggested that an unusually warm December likely hurt clothing store sales and encouraged spending on building supplies. He expects these trends to reverse as the weather has turned colder in January.