Active closes five stores, more closures planned

Active Ride Shop, one of the industry's largest customers which embarked on a rapid expansion in the past few years, has closed five stores so far this month.

Active stores in Chula Vista, Lake Elsinore, downtown San Diego and in San Diego at the Shops at Las Americas are no longer listed on Active's website. Phones at those stores either go unanswered or are no longer in order. 

Shane Wallace told me this afternoon that Simi Valley has also closed, and two other under-performing stores will close this week. All told, about 10 stores will close by April 1.

In the past 12 months or so, Active opened a new state-of-the-art, 100,000-square-foot headquarters and warehouse in Mira Loma, made a large investment in an upgraded technology system for its robust e-commerce business and opened several new stores. Since 2006, Active roughly doubled its store count. A lot of this expansion and investment was underway before the economy began contracting.

Currently, Active operates 24 stores.

I will report more information as I have it about the situation.