Several retailers across the United States are closing to focus on online shopping sales.
The Children's Place is one of those retailers that decided to close down at least 300 stores in the next twenty months. By the end of the year, almost 200 of The Children's Place stores will shut down.
That is after the shift in consumer behavior that was observed over the past months.
Online shopping as a trend
A lot of retailers like Bed Bath & Beyond, Bath & Body Works, and Express have announced closures this year. Still, it is due to the shift of sales from the concrete stores to online shopping sales.
In a statement issued by The Children's Place, CEO Jane Elfers said, "We are significantly accelerating our fleet optimization initiative, and focusing our resources on accelerating our digital sales."
Online shopping raised the sales of The Children's Place to 300 percent in the past months. That is when stores were briefly closed due to the coronavirus restrictions.
Ninety-five percent of the stores of The Children's place remained closed during the peak of the coronavirus pandemic. Their net sales in the first quarter are down thirty-eight percent compared to the revenue in the same quarter last year.
The Children's Place will focus on online shopping sales.
The Children's Place intends to focus on digital change. It is because of the trend that they were able to observe during the pandemic.
Elfers said, "We believe that our superior product, coupled with our unique ability, at this critical juncture, to significantly grow digital revenue, while meaningfully reducing our reliance on our store portfolio, will result in consolidated market share gains for years to come."
All of The Children's Place stores will resume on July 1
Despite the announcement of the store closures, eighty-eight percent of the store partners are back. That is after being temporarily laid off due to the pandemic.
On July 1, the rest of the twelve percent of associates are expected to be back in the stores.
There is no announcement yet from The Children's Place management when they will start to close down the stores. The locations of the stores for closure are also not disclosed yet, as well.
There are 920 The Children's Place stores in the U.S., Canada, and Puerto Rico.
According to Elfers, they are targeting to lessen revenue coming from mall-based stores. The company's holdings intend to have less than twenty-five percent of their income coming from the brick-and-mortar channel.
Retailers' sales decrease
According to an article from CBNC, economists expected the sales plunge in 12.3% in retailers companies in April.
The closings brought by the coronavirus pandemic caused Americans to cut back on spending. Mainly, non-essentials were no longer a priority of most Americans.
Also, since most consumers are spending their time at home, fewer things are bought and consumed, thus, dropping the companies' sales.
