About The Store Count

The Store Count is an independent tracker of how many locations major US chains operate, and how that number is changing.

Store closures are big news, but the numbers in most coverage are announcements, and they go out of date. Paid retail research is behind a paywall. We publish a free, continuously updated count instead. It is rebuilt every Monday from the chains’ own store locators, checked against what the companies report to the SEC, and graded for how far you can trust it.

We track 81 chains and publish a page for each one that passes our quality gate (35 right now). A written report comes out at the start of each month.

Independence

We have no connection to any chain we cover, no paid placements and no sponsored content. The site may carry advertising in the future; advertisers never affect what we publish.

Standards

• Every number links to its source and carries an “as of” date and a grade.
• The method is public, and every weekly dataset is versioned.
• Corrections are made in public, on the corrections page.
• A single store is “no longer on the store locator”, never “closed”, unless two sources say so.

The Store Count is a sister site of Guess the Chain, a daily map game about chain stores. Questions, tips and corrections: contact us.