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Burlington Stores is a discount retailer that sells brand-name clothing, shoes, and home goods at prices lower than regular department stores.
Burlington Stores is an off-price retailer. That means it buys brand-name clothing, shoes, and home decor from other companies — often leftover inventory, canceled orders, or end-of-season stuff — and resells it at 20 to 60 percent below regular department store prices. Its customers are bargain-hunting families, and it makes money on the gap between what it pays for goods and what shoppers pay at the register. Almost all revenue comes from its stores; online sales are a tiny slice. The company runs about 1,000 locations across the United States, mostly in strip malls rather than fancy shopping centers, which keeps rent cheap. Headquarters are in New Jersey, but the real engine is its buying team, which scoops up deals whenever other retailers stumble.
Think of it as the clearance rack at a department store, but as an entire business. Burlington's edge is speed and flexibility: its buyers can snap up a great deal on 50,000 pairs of sneakers one week and switch to winter coats the next, depending on what's cheap. That's different from a regular store like Target, which commits to products months in advance. Burlington also keeps costs low with simple store layouts, fewer staff, and no fancy displays. In recent years, the company has been opening smaller stores, roughly 25,000 to 40,000 square feet, which lets it fit into more neighborhoods. It has also been growing its "treasure hunt" feel — shoppers never know exactly what they'll find, so they come back often.
Financially, Burlington brings in around $10 billion a year in revenue and has been growing modestly. It doesn't pay a dividend. Instead, it uses its cash to open new stores — roughly 100 per year — and to buy back its own stock, which boosts the value of remaining shares. The business is cyclical: when inflation squeezes household budgets, more shoppers trade down to off-price stores, which helps Burlington. When the economy is strong and people feel rich, they may drift back to full-price stores. The big risk is inventory: if Burlington misjudges what shoppers want, it gets stuck with piles of unsold goods and has to mark them down further, which crushes profit margins. But for now, the simple formula — buy cheap, sell cheap, keep costs low — keeps the registers ringing.
Saved answer · last researched 11 Oct 2026