Lowe’s among major retailers closing for Easter

Lowe’s, the home improvement retail giant, is closing its more than 1,700 stores April 20 — but just for the Easter holiday.

“Lowes stores closing” became a trending topic on Google late Monday, sparking confusion over the fate of the country’s second-largest hardware store chain. The misleading reports that suggested Lowe’s was shutting its doors permanently come amid a bruising period for brick-and-mortal retail that has most recently included closures of stores such as Joann and Party City.

This is the sixth-straight year Lowe’s has closed for Easter, which is not a federal holiday and falls on a Sunday, when its stores are normally open. Nia Long, a spokesperson for Lowe’s, said in an email Tuesday that the closure is the company’s way of showing appreciation to its employees and enabling them to “spend some extra time with their loved ones.”

Lowe’s is among more than two-dozen major retailers closing for Easter this year, including Aldi, Best Buy, Costco, Marshall’s, Target and TJ Maxx. While stores that sell food, such as Aldi and Costco, have typically shut down for multiple major holidays during the year, other stores only recently added more holiday closures to their calendars.

The shift marks a slight reversal of the decades-long trend of stores keeping their doors open more days of the year or for extended hours on holidays such as Thanksgiving, which leads into the busiest shopping season of the year.

In 2022, major retailers including Target and Walmart announced they would return to being closed entirely for Thanksgiving, with Walmart U.S. chief executive John Furner saying at the time that being open on Thanksgiving was “a thing of the past” for the company.

Companies have said the embrace of holiday closures is meant to give employees a reprieve, while industry analysts note the change in consumer trends means a growing number of shoppers make their purchases online rather than in-store.