Should We Still Go Shopping (Online)?

The last time there was a retail situation like this — and it was not really like this but may be the only comparable time — was after 9/11, when life in New York ground to a halt, and shopping did, too.

Then, department stores, desperate to get people back into spending mode and make their holiday numbers (or anything that could be considered a number), began to put all of their stock on sale in November instead of after Christmas as usual.

In order to stay competitive, brands with their own stores had to drop their prices, too. It started a race to the bottom. And it set a precedent that stores and designers still bemoan all these years later.

We’re in the same dangerous place now. The big department stores and online sites have started selling new products at 20 percent off, marked down as soon as they arrive. They are also sending products back to designers without payment, refusing to accept new stock.

Designers with their own sites are dropping prices to keep up.

And yet, as Sacha Rose, the chief executive of the British pajama brand Derek Rose, wrote in a recent email to clients, “Our online business is keeping us alive right now.”

They are not the only ones. Any small designer with a direct-to-consumer digital platform is clinging to it with their fingernails.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/26/style/coronavirus-shopping.html