The Big Lots! will be in Dixie Plaza. (Jon Giffin The Vicksburg Post)

[1/4/05] Vicksburg will be getting a new retail store in the Dixie Plaza shopping area, said a spokesman for Ohio-based Big Lots!

Pat Zeigler, a spokesman at the company headquarters in Columbus, said the company plans to open a store here at the end of March.

“Big Lots! is the country’s largest closeout retailer,” Zeigler said.

She said the company buys merchandise from manufacturers when they are closing out a line, have made too much of a product or have orders canceled.

“We are able to offer the merchandise at 20 percent to 40 percent below discount stores and even more below regular department stores,” she said.

Generally, Big Lots! offers health and beauty aids, domestics such as sheets and towels, electronic appliances, gift items, infants’ items and women’s accessories.

Lately, the company has been adding furniture to the lines of products carried in its stores.

The Vicksburg store on South Frontage Road will contain about 29,000 square feet of space and include one of the new furniture departments, Zeigler said. Portions of the strip mall, which first featured a TG&Y Family Center, Winn-Dixie Supermarket and Treasury Drugs, have been vacant. Companies now in the center include Cowboy Maloney and River Region Health Systems office space.

Big Lots! has 1,500 stores nationwide and 18 in Mississippi.

Zeigler said originally Big Lots! tried to buy enough merchandise from a source to place it in all of its stores, but recently they have been going to a more zoned approach. That, she said, will allow the company to place smaller lots in areas where that particular line of merchandise would be more popular. For example, if the manufacturer sells garden supplies and it’s January and February, they would place that in stores in the South.

The stores are supplied through five distribution centers, and the Vicksburg store will likely get its merchandise through the center in Birmingham, Ala.