In what’s nothing short of a dramatic, multiyear transformation, Burlington Stores Inc. continues to downsize stores to 25,000 gross square feet on average, from 80,000 to 100,000 square feet.
It’s happening simultaneously with the off-pricer’s aggressive agenda of opening new stores.
“It’s a big change and it’s working,” Michael O’Sullivan, chief executive officer of Burlington, told WWD in an exclusive interview. “Despite the fact that our stores are a third the size of what they used to be, they’re doing similar sales volumes, and on a sales-per-square-foot basis, we’ve seen a huge increase in productivity. So what the customer is saying is, they like that smaller format.”
He based that observation on hosting events at four stores — two each in the Philadelphia and the Miami markets during the weekend of Nov. 14 to 16, 2025, and the results from a research firm that conducted qualitative, in-store intercept interviews with shoppers at the four stores that weekend.
O’Sullivan said it is not unusual when an 80,000-square-foot Burlington store (they typically generate $10 million a year in sales volume) downsizes to 25,000 square feet either grows volume or doesn’t lose volume. That sounds magical, given the sharply reduced square footage and lower inventory level. But O’Sullivan said physical and operational advancements have enabled the smaller stores to maintain or exceed past sales volumes.
