Week 7: How the retailers and carrier services have been impacted
Retailers have faced unprecedented challenges in recent weeks. High-street stores have shut across the world and distribution centres have slowed or ground to a halt. Unsurprisingly, clothing sales fell immediately after the UK government announced lockdown measures, but have since shown signs of recovery online.
Against this backdrop, ZigZag hosted a second COVID-19 Update Webinar to shed light on how the retail industry has reacted to the coronavirus-inspired disruption. Here are some of the key updates on retailers that were outlined on Wednesday this week:
Arcadia Group has approached banks and hedge funds about borrowing roughly £50m against its distribution centre in Daventry, Northamptonshire. The retailer is likely to close dozens more of its UK stores post Covid-19 and could walk away from up to 550 stores this week
Debenhams has called in adviser KPMG to consider contingency plans. The department store has confirmed that seven stores will not re-open after the Covid-19 lockdown is lifted, making 422 staff redundant. The company has appointed administrators in Ireland.
Schuh resumed online trading with ‘exhaustive welfare measures’ in place.
Ted Baker furloughs 75% of workforce (Drapers)
Net-A-porter emailed their customers to announce it is taking orders via its UK website once again, although these orders won’t be fulfilled whilst the company’s London warehouse remains closed. Its US site is also open for pre-orders but again, shipping is on hold for now.
Next has reopened its warehouses and taken online orders for a selection of products (but was at capacity by 8.30am on day 1)
The webinar also took an in-depth look at how all the major carrier services have performed over the last month. Email luke.toudup@zigzag.global for a link to the recording. Here’s a snapshot of a selection of retailers discussed:
An Post reports a number of post offices have been temporarily closed including: North Strand, Dublin 1; Dorset Street, Dublin 3; Belfield, Dublin 4; Toomevara, Co. Tipperary. The carrier announced a ‘Request a Check-In’ functionality to allow family members to request a specific ‘An Post Check-In’ by the local postman or postwoman for an older or vulnerable person during the current ‘Cocooning’ period.
Australia Post customers are able to still send and receive parcels and mail – with 24 – 48 hour delays. Customers are also able to get their parcel delivered to a free 24/7 Parcel Locker, with more than 400 locations available.
Canada Post stated with many Canadians isolating at home and shopping more online, Canada Post is now processing and delivering parcels at levels only experienced during the busiest weeks of the Christmas season. On Monday April 20, they delivered more than 1.8 million parcels to Canadians. Canada Post is advising customers across the country to expect delays with their parcel deliveries.
Correos networks are now back up and running after 6 weeks of disruption and closures. Services resumed yesterday but too early to judge delivery speeds.
FedEx are currently experiencing a surge in demand on the China-Europe lane. Although are well positioned to support changes in the global supply chain. They have suspensions of services to postcodes in Italy, Turkey and Portugal; as well as both outbound and inbound service suspensions for a number of countries including Australia and NZ.
New Zealand Post retail stores are reopening, customers will be able to use these stores to send their returns back to our local hub in NZ.
UPS and Michaels have teamed up to temporarily offer consumers a safe and secure option to pick up packages and drop off returns by leaving them in designated drop-off locations outside of select Michaels stores across the United States.
Having accurate and timely information to hand is crucial to limiting the impact of the coronavirus. So keep a look out on our Linkedin and Twitter feeds for the third instalment of the series that will once again provide a carrier update as well as delve deeper into eCommerce, logistics and returns post-COVID-19.
If you are interested in attending the webinar, email luke.toudup@zigzag.global for information on Wednesday 29th April’s webinar taking place at 3pm BST.