tailors, vendors who supply hangers to store
fixtures, and construction workers charged with
renovating or building new stores.
“A lot of the economy is driven by the consumer,”
said Neil Saunders, managing dierctor of
GlobalData Retail, a research firm. “The
consumer is the linchpin. If the consumer takes a
tumble, the rest of the economy falls down.”
Stockpiling of essentials is starting to wane,
Saunders said, which will also lower retail sales
in April, and more grocery stores are limiting the
number of shoppers in their locations. Walmart,
the nation’s largest retailer, is now allowing no
more than five customers for each 1,000 square
feet at a given time. That will reduce their stores’
capacity by about 80%.
The pullback in spending intensifies the problems
facing brick-and-mortar retailers, which were
already struggling with online competition.
With a nationwide shutdown of malls and
most stores, the pandemic is putting many
clothing retailers in peril, while increasing the
dominance of big box stores that have remained
open during the pandemic because they sell
essentials like food and household goods.
More than 250,000 stores, including Macy’s,
Nordstrom and Nike, which sell nonessential
merchandise, have been shuttered since mid-
March. That’s 60% of overall U.S. retail square
footage, Saunders said.
Major retailers including J.C. Penney, Macy’s
and Nordstrom have furloughed hundreds
of thousands of workers, while Walmart and
Amazon are on hiring sprees to try to meet the
surging demand of shoppers buying online or
for curbside drop-off or delivery.