How we count stores

Every number on this site is sourced, dated and graded. This page explains where the numbers come from, how we clean them, how we grade them, and what can still go wrong.

Where the numbers come from

1. Company-reported counts. Public companies state their store counts in 10-K and 10-Q filings and earnings releases. We enter them by hand with the exact quote and a link, and a script re-reads every filing to confirm each quote is in it. Counts with a different scope from the store locator (company-operated only, US and Canada together, worldwide) are shown but never used for grading.
2. Store locators. All the Places, an open-data project, scrapes chains’ own store locators every week and publishes the results (CC0). This is our weekly series, back to January 2023.
3. Overture Maps. A monthly snapshot of each chain’s US places from Overture Maps (CDLA-Permissive-2.0), counted at confidence 0.9 or above. It is only ever a check on the locator count: Overture still lists many stores of chains that have closed.
4. News reports. Used for statuses and timelines, always linked, and never the only source for a count.

How we clean the weekly series

Store-locator scrapes break. A run can come back empty, half-finished or doubled. In our test of 193 weekly runs since January 2023, 102 of the 715 scrapers covering 100 or more US stores jumped by more than 20%, or dropped to zero, in more than 5% of weeks. So each week’s number has to pass these rules before it counts:

• We keep US stores only, placed by their coordinates. We remove duplicates: the same store listed twice, or two stores of the same chain closer than 50 metres.
• A zero is never accepted.
• A week is accepted if it is within ±15% of the last accepted week. A bigger move is accepted only if it holds for 3 weeks in a row, within 6 weeks.
• A run that ended early (a timeout) may not pull the count down by more than 3%.
• A big drop or jump that comes back to the earlier level within 26 weeks was a scraper outage, and the weeks in between are rejected.
• After 12 weeks with nothing accepted, the series starts again and needs 3 agreeing weeks. A restart below 10% of the past year’s level is rejected.
• A count of 500 or more that stays exactly the same for 26 weeks is marked stale.
• The published weekly number is the median of the last 4 accepted weeks, rounded to three significant figures (“about 7,880”).
• A chain is only used for grading when at least 5 of its last 8 runs passed these rules.

What the grades mean

• A A: the company reported a count in the last 120 days, and our locator count is within ±5% of it. For a closed chain, the closure is confirmed by two sources.
• B B: two independent sources agree within ±10%: either the locator and Overture, or the locator and an older company count (compared with the locator count for the same week).
• C C: one usable source only. Shown in tables, labelled “estimate”, and never used in a headline.

A chain gets its own page only when it has at least 26 weeks of clean history, grade A or B, and a status with a dated source.

When we report a change

A change, like “−848 Walgreens stores since January 2023”, goes in a headline only if it is verified. That means the chain is grade A or B now, and the locator matched a company count near the start of the period. It also means the locator series didn’t restart in between. Other changes are shown in tables as estimates. Changes that come from a company announcement quote the announcement and link to it.

Single stores

Each month we compare each chain’s store list from about four weeks earlier with its two newest runs. A store is listed as “no longer on the store locator” only if it is missing from both runs and nothing of the chain is within 50 metres. That is not proof it closed, and we never call a single store closed without two sources. A store list is published only when its new and missing stores add up to the change in the chain’s total, and only for chains whose change is verified.

Statuses

Each chain has one status, set by hand from a dated source: growing, stable, shrinking, bankrupt, closed or rebranded. From filings: a count moving by 3% a year or more, or a stated opening or closing program. A closed chain’s series is frozen at the closure date, and later scraper output is ignored.

Known limitations

• Store locators can include stores that are opening soon or have closed recently, and may leave out stores inside other stores.
• A company’s count can cover a different set of locations from its locator, such as licensed stores, Puerto Rico or other brands. We note the scope of every company count.
• Many large chains don’t publish counts. For them the best grade possible is B.
• When a chain’s locator breaks, its page drops off until it recovers. 46 of the 81 chains we track have no page right now for this reason or because their sources disagree.

Found a mistake? Tell us; every correction is logged on the corrections page.