Thinking Ahead

You can't read retail headlines without seeing gloom and doom ... gloom and doom generate clicks and ad dollars, so of course that's what you are going to read. 

• Yes, retailers will go bankrupt ... in large numbers.
• Yes, stores will be closed ... in large numbers.
• Yes, companies that survive have to liquidate billions of dollars of spring merchandise and that's gonna hurt.
• Yes, companies have no certainty regarding how willing customers are to shop in a store this fall.
• Yes, Amazon and Walmart and Target will get bigger while everybody else gets smaller.

Your job is to do something about what we all know is going to happen.

Think ahead four years from now.

• A third of malls are closed.
• Maybe half of traditional stores have closed.
• Traditional brands are bankrupt.
• Rent is CHEAP.

You are going to have an opportunity ... a big opportunity ... to do something very different in three or four years. Cheap rent is a big deal. Start thinking about what you'll do different now. Set up test concepts locally. Build upon what you learn once there is a vaccine for the plague.