Party’s over, folks.
Party City, which was at one time the leading destination for party supplies, has shut down its corporate operations, effective immediately, less than a week before Christmas Day in the United States. Folks all over Facebook, Reddit and so forth are crying foul given the time of year. Unfortunately, in the business world, December 25th is just another day on the calendar. In other words, this sudden closure was a business decision. Nothing personal about it.
As usual, there is information aplenty on the internet. One anonymous (of course!) person stated that closure dates for the retail locations may vary into early 2025, whereas corporate employees are gone as of today. Whether this is true or not depends on whom you ask.
Corporate employees were locked out of the building on the 10th, limited to those urgently needed to wind down operations. Today is their last day. However, it stands to reason that some people will need to stay behind at corporate headquarters to wind things down. Final paychecks need to be cut. The financial aspects need to be handled, and so on and so forth.
As of the time this article was published, their website is functional and still offers shipping. There are (or were) several locations here in the Albany, New York area. Quick calls to all of them are answered via automated greetings, but pressing five for an associate results in ringing with no answer. Accordingly, I could not get a comment from anyone.
There is plenty bad news for retail and corporate employees alike, according to CNN:
- Operations cease immediately, at least at the corporate level. Allegedly, at least some stores will remain open for a couple of months in an effort to jettison as much product as humanly possible.
- No severance pay.
- Benefits apparently end immediately.
Of course there’s already passionate discussion on the Party City subreddit of Reddit. Apparently, some stores are already closed as of today, while others are open and may remain so for the next two months. It would be a wise idea to keep all stores open so that as much product as possible can be sold, albeit at a level of discount so deep that many a person will show up, hoping to Jew the prices down as much as possible.
Given the corporate headquarters being shut down, no stores will receive new shipments while a buttload of product will go untouched at their warehouse(s).
Whatever the case, lots of people are without work. Many are crying foul because Christmas is less than a week away. Unfortunately, that’s not good enough.
One thing is clear: this is just business. Nothing personal.