“The big difference between this situation and the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009 is that retailers are already experiencing a lot of challenges right now that they really weren’t experiencing then,” said Jay Sole, a retail analyst at UBS.
Mr. Sole suggested that government intervention was possible, noting that the five biggest department stores in the United States accounted for $78 billion in sales and hundreds of thousands of jobs.
“If we’re going to a very fast disorderly change in the retail landscape, I think some of these retailers could be deemed too big to fail,” he said.
Grocery stores and big-box chains have seen sales surge as shoppers rush to secure toilet paper, disinfectant wipes and food. And in an indication of how the outbreak has accelerated the shift to online retail, Amazon announced Monday that it would hire 100,000 workers to handle the surge in demand caused by the crisis.
For brick-and-mortar sellers of “nonessential” items, however, the spread of the virus has spelled trouble. A wave of retailers announced temporary store closings over the weekend, starting with Apple and Patagonia on Friday, and later extending to chains like Lululemon, REI, Abercrombie Fitch, Urban Outfitters and Nike. Upstarts like Glossier, Warby Parker and Everlane also said they were closing their doors.
The chains emphasized that they would pay their employees for scheduled hours in that time. But many workers wonder how long that can last.
At 5:30 p.m., the Uniqlo clothing store in the Atlantic Terminal shopping mall in Brooklyn is normally packed, with checkout lines snaking back through the aisles and customers squeezing past to riffle through stacks of slim-fit T-shirts and moisture-wicking underwear. But on Monday, the store was nearly empty.
Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/business/economy/coronavirus-layoffs.html
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