Big Lots, Inc. is a Fortune 500 retail corporation, with its headquarters in Columbus, Ohio, and nearly 1,500 stores in 47 states and Canada.

Its department stores sell a wide variety of merchandise, including packaged food and beverages, toys, furniture, clothing, housewares, and small electronics, much of which is closed out or overstocked merchandise. Many of the items in these stores sell out quickly: in the store one day, but gone the next, with no replenishments coming. Many other items, such as foodstuffs, are stocked continually.

In many cases, Big Lots uses a building formerly occupied by some other store. When Rite Aid Inc moved many Payless Drugstores into newly designed, stand-alone buildings, Big Lots (Pic 'N' Save) opened many new stores of its own in those newly-vacant, open-air plaza storefronts.

Big Lots also operates a wholesale division which provides merchandise in bulk for resale from a variety of categories. This is a separate division of Big Lots and does not carry the same merchandise found in the retail stores. Big Lots Wholesale also attends trade shows and has permanent showrooms in Columbus, Ohio; New York; and the Boston and Chicago areas.