VALDOSTA — The closing of two shoe stores in Valdosta will lead to the loss of more than a dozen jobs, according to local business leaders.

Payless ShoeSource, headquartered in Topeka, Kans., announced Monday it was filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and would be closing all of its nearly 2,500 stores in North America as well as its online store. More than 700 stores located outside the U.S. are unaffected.

The company has two stores in Valdosta: one in the Valdosta Mall and the other on Inner Perimeter Road near Walmart.

Liquidation sales have begun; Payless said in a statement that store closings would begin in March, while some stores may last as long as May as inventory winds down.

Monday, sale signs offering 20-40 percent off were posted in the windows of the Inner Perimeter Road location. Managers both at that shop and the Valdosta Mall location deferred comment to Payless’ corporate headquarters.

The mall shop has eight employees while the Inner Perimeter Road store has five, according to information provided by Becky Morgan, vice president for business development for the Valdosta-Lowndes County Chamber of Commerce.

Payless has asked the bankruptcy court for permission to honor customer gift cards and store credit until March 11 and to allow returns and exchanges of non-final sale purchases made before Feb. 17 until March 1. The company has discontinued its rewards programs and canceled outstanding merchandise coupons, according to a statement from the company.

The closing of the Payless stores is only the latest instance of high-profile retailers pulling out of Valdosta:

• The city’s Sears store closed in January 2018 after a seven-decade presence in Valdosta, part of a massive downsizing of the former retail giant.

• Toys-R-Us on St. Augustine Road closed that same year when the entire chain folded.

• The Winn-Dixie supermarket chain closed two stores in Valdosta in May — one on the Madison Highway, the other on Bemiss Road — as part of a court-ordered divestment of almost 100 underperforming locations.

• The electronics retailer Radio Shack pulled out of Valdosta in 2017 when most of the firm’s company-owned stores were closed in a bankruptcy reorganization. 

• The Valdosta Mall lost retailers New York and Company, PacSun, Maurice’s, Hallmark and Jessi July in 2018.

Terry Richards is senior reporter at The Valdosta Daily Times.