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BUSINESS Tuesday 22 december 2020
The holidays could make or break struggling stores

By ANNE D'INNOCENZIO holiday season. But with
NEW YORK (AP) — Cloth- restrictions and people
ing stores and specialty nervous about shopping,
retailers are offering big she has just a few people
discounts and heavily pro- coming in per day. After
moting curbside pickup in being forced to close in
hopes of rescuing a lacklus- the spring, Liana reopened
ter holiday shopping sea- in July, but she's only re-
son in which surging coro- captured about one third
navirus cases have kept of her typical sales. She's
many shoppers at home. been on the verge of clos-
For some, it could be their ing her business three times
last chance at survival. And "It's definitely been rough,
even a last-minute sales "said Pai, who has been
boost could be too late to stepping up FaceTime with
save them. her customers , market-
The holiday season, which ing her shop on Instagram
accounts for about 20% of and offering fat discounts
the retail industry's annual during the final days of the
sales, has always been season. She noted that she
make-or-break for strug- needed to do well dur-
gling stores. But it's even ing the holidays because
more important this year it helps her get through
as they look to make up the slow period of January
for sales lost since the pan- A Target employee places a curbside pickup purchase into the trunk of a customer in Jackson, through March.
Miss., Thursday, Nov. 5, 2020. After a weak start to the holiday season for many mall-based retail-
demic forced them to tem- ers, the strugglers are making their final push in the final days before and the week after Christmas. "We're scraping by," she
porarily close locations. Associated Press said.
That's a big challenge given Others have managed a
that the deadline to order roughly 100 chains he mon- that they normally get, we eration, the nation's largest successful transition to on-
online and get items in time itors to be down 2.1%, with are going to see an uptick retail trade group, expects line sales. Camp, a small
for Christmas has passed. mall-based retailers down in bankruptcies and store holiday sales to increase chain that designed its toy
Retailers also can't rely on nearly 30% and stores lo- closures in the first quarter," between 3.6 percent and shops to be places kids
big crowds of procrastina- cated outside of malls up said Natalie Kotlyar, a na- 5.2 percent compared to wanted to play, had to
tors because of restrictions 3.4%. A recent report from tional leader of BDO's Re- 2019, mostly due to strong temporarily close all five of
on how many people can S&P Global highlighted tail & Consumer Products sales at the big box stores. its locations in the spring. It
shop at once. seven publicly traded mall practice. "I think many re- Those numbers, which ex- regrouped, shifting activi-
Big box retailers like landlords who are facing a tailers were holding out fil- clude automobile dealers, ties like birthday parties on-
Walmart and Target, which brutal winter. ing bankruptcy to see how gasoline stations and res- line and launching a holi-
have been deemed essen- Already, more than 40 the holiday season is going taurants, compare with last day gift exchange 10 days
tial and mostly allowed to U.S. retailers have filed for to go." year's gain of 4%. ago.
remain open throughout Chapter 11 since the pan- Retail sales fell a seasonally The holiday season is also Online sales increased
the pandemic, have done demic started forcing shut- adjusted 1.1% in Novem- the time when stores typi- 40% compared with last
well by attracting shoppers downs in March. And more ber, according to the U.S. cally get a chance to at- year and overall sales
with safety concerns who than 8,600 stores have Commerce Department. tract new customers. Nearly have tripled. Since stores
don't want to go to multiple closed this year, accord- It was the biggest drop in 90% of customers polled by reopened, traffic has in-
stores. Supermarkets, home ing to Coresight Research. seven months, with many America's Research Group creased an average of
improvement stores and Just in the last month, mu- types of retailers seeing in recent years said that 17% each week. Tiffany
online retailers have also sic chain Guitar Center Inc. declines. The biggest drop when they shop at a new Markofsky, Camp's chief
seen strong sales. and clothier Francesca's was at department stores, store for the first time, it's marketing officer, says an
But many clothing and Holdings Corp. filed for down 7.7%. during the holidays. That's outdoor location outside
department stores have Chapter 11 bankruptcy. There's also other evidence not happening this year. of a Manhattan store and
struggled, especially those Meanwhile, retailers like of growing consumer cau- Shoppers are cutting back ticketed shopping times
in shopping malls, some of Neiman Marcus and J.C. tion: Overall spending from the number of stores they have helped shoppers feel
which were already in trou- Penney that emerged from roughly Oct. 30 through visit to four or five, from six comfortable.
ble even before the coro- bankruptcy this past fall are Dec. 14 is down 5.4%, from to eight, says C. Britt Beem- "We are in a much better
navirus upended the retail looking to regain their foot- the equivalent period last er, chairman of the group. place than last year," said
landscape. ing. year, according to JPMor- Liana Pai, who co-owns Markofsky, noting a strong
"People are spending mon- Neiman Marcus is among gan Chase, which tracks clothing store Liana in Man- holiday season. "A lot of
ey. It's just falling in pockets the companies heavily pro- activity on 30 million of its hattan, says her family busi- this stuff we were thinking
of areas like home improve- moting curbside pickup in debit and credit cards. ness used to be bustling about in our minds. But CO-
ment and food," said Ken the final days before Christ- Still, the National Retail Fed- with customers during the VID crystalized it."q
Perkins of RetailMetrics LLC, mas. The luxury depart-
a retail research firm. "You ment store chain is offering
have to worry about the customers a $25 gift card if
mall-based retailer. When they use the service.
the dust settles after the The worst could still be
fourth quarter, you've got ahead, with COVID-19 cas-
to wonder what kind of po- es on the rise in the U.S. and
sition some of these chains the possibility of more store
are going to to be in." closures and restrictions in
Perkins expects fourth- 2021.
quarter earnings for the "Without this extra boost