A lot is happening in the retail world, with stores closing, reopening, and closing again as shopper habits have changed in the wake of the coronavirus.
One of our FAVORITE kids’ clothing stores, The Children’s Place, announced they are closing 300 stores nationwide — about 33% of the 920 total stores.
But this isn’t exactly like other closures we’ve been hearing about.
100 stores are closing now, 100 more by the end of the year.
The Children’s Place will close the 300 stores over the next 20 months, kicking off with the first 100 closing by summer’s end.
The next 100 stores will permanently close before the end of 2020, and the final 100 will close in early 2021.
The company has closed 275 stores since 2013.
Liquidation sales will likely begin in July.
According to The Children’s Place executives, most of the shuttered stores will reopen briefly for liquidation sales.
Generally speaking, liquidation sales typically last between 8-12 weeks, with discounts increasing by 10% each week.
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The Children’s Place is getting out of shopping malls.
The future of malls has been a huge question mark for shoppers and retailers, and The Children’s Place says that, for the most part, they’re not going to stick around to see how it goes.
At the end of March, about 2/3 of The Children’s Place locations were in malls. The company said in a recent earnings call that by the end of 2021, mall-based stores will generate less than 25% of the company’s revenue.
Macy’s is also closing many of their mall-based locations.
Instead, the retailer is doubling down on online sales.
The Children’s Place reported that their e-commerce sales were up 300% so far in the second quarter of 2020, while about 95% of their stores remain closed.
In the first three months of 2020, online sales jumped 12.2%, representing more than half of the company’s total sales.
The Children’s Place website is offering 60-80% off all summer season apparel, graphic tees for $3.99 or less, and free shipping on every purchase.
They just did the same thing with Gymboree.
The Children’s Place used to be competitors with Gymboree, but after Gymboree went bankrupt in 2019, The Children’s Place became the brand’s owner.
Since then, The Children’s Place has relaunched Gymboree as an online-only store, as well as integrating the brand within 200 The Children’s Place stores. TCP executives said they are “really pleased” with early results of the Gymboree experiment.
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