MADRID/LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Forget quick or slow fashion, now it’s ground to a halt.
FILE PICTURE: An individual is seen inside an empty shopping mall throughout a partial lockdown in Leverkusen, Germany, March 20, 2020, as the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continues. REUTERS/Thilo Schmuelgen/File Image
A mountain of apparel stock has actually been accumulating in stores, distribution centers, storage facilities and even shipping containers during months of COVID-19 lockdowns. As merchants resume around the world, they have to work out how to get rid of it.
Their primary alternatives? Keep it in storage, hold a sale, offload it to “off-price” sellers like TJ Maxx which offer branded products at deep discount rates, or move it to online resale websites.
None are perfect, and all are damage-limitation.
Property business Knight Frank informed Reuters it had fielded inquiries for excess stock for over 6 million square feet(557,500 square meters) of short-term let warehouse area in Britain considering that the pandemic took hold there in March.
Yet storage is only a practical alternative for evergreen “basics” that are not tied to one particular year and could be cost a later date ought to consumer need recover – items like underwear, t-shirts, chinos and timeless tennis shoe styles.
Apparel chains including British high-street seller Next ( NXT.L) and German sportswear brand name Adidas ( ADSGn.DE) said they had actually stashed away unsold essentials, with the objective to provide them to buyers next year rather.
But sto