Could Macy’s, Gap and Kohl’s collapse? Iconic retailers are struggling to survive during ‘catastrophic’ virus crisis worse than the 2008 financial crash with ‘15,000 stores to close for good’

Monday, April 13, 2020
By Paul Martin

More than 250,000 stores have temporarily closed since March amid the virus
Macy’s, Kohl’s and Gap Inc. all said in March that they will furlough staff
Coresight Research predicts that 15,000 stores will permanently close this year
‘This is the most catastrophic crisis that retail has faced – worse than the financial crisis in 2008, worse than 9/11’, one expert has warned
As of Sunday night, at least 22,000 Americans had died from coronavirus
Learn more about how to help people impacted by COVID

By LAUREN FRUEN
DAILYMAIL.COM
13 April 2020

Retailers like Macy’s, Gap and Kohl’s are struggling to survive amid a ‘catastrophic crisis’ worse than 9/11 and the 2008 financial crash, according to experts.

More than 250,000 stores that sell non-essential merchandise have temporarily shuttered since mid-March in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Coresight Research predicts that 15,000 U.S. stores will permanently close this year, setting a new record and nearly doubling its earlier forecast of 8,000 store closings.

‘Retail has hung a closed sign on the door literally and metaphorically,’ Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData Retail, said.

Macy’s, Kohl’s and Gap Inc. all said at the end of March that they will stop paying tens of thousands of employees who were thrown out of work when the chains temporarily closed their stores and sales collapsed as a result of the pandemic.

Saunders added: ‘This is the most catastrophic crisis that retail has faced — worse than the financial crisis in 2008, worse than 9/11. Almost overnight, the retail economy shifted from being about things people want to things that they need.’

As of Sunday night, as many as 22,129 Americans had died from coronavirus.

Public health experts have warned the U.S. death toll could surge to more than 200,000 over the summer if the unprecedented stay-at-home orders that have closed businesses and kept most Americans indoors are lifted when they expire at the end of the month.

But long before there was a global coronavirus pandemic, brick-and-mortar retailers struggled to get people to walk through their doors instead of shopping online.

Now those retailers are faced with an even more Herculean task of how to stay on people’s minds — and more importantly their pocketbooks — when many of their store doors are closed.

Around 60 per cent of overall U.S. retail square footage is currently shuttered.

Some retailers have responded to the challenge by coming up with creative ways to stay relevant.

The Rest…HERE

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