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.'
An empty shopping cart in an empty parking lot at a Macy's department store in a mall which is closed to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus, in Paramus, New Jersey
Around 60 per cent of overall U.S. retail square footage is currently shuttered.
But many mall-based clothing retailers like Gap, Kohl's and Macy's that were already struggling before the pandemic haven't been able to pivot successfully to online-only.
Although they have been expanding their presence, with clothing accounting for about 27 per cent of overall online sales last year, their businesses aren't built for their stores to remain shuttered for such a long stretch.
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