Inditex, the owner of Zara, is closing up around 1200 small stores after facing loss during the pandemic. The loss was of €409 million (US$465 million) in February, March and April as sales went down to €3.3 billion from €5.9 billion in the same period of time.
Inditex, which initially had 7,500 stores in 96 different countries, announced that the larger stores would expand their floor space by 2.5% a year in 2020-2022. It also shared a €2.7 billion plan to upgrade their technology at the existing stores. This is because their online sales have increased by 95% during the lockdown in April and they’d like to keep it that way for the rest of the quarantined life. Moreover, they expect their e-commerce to account for a quarter of their business within the next 2 years.
Also, analysts are saying that the boom in e-commerce might be there even after the COVID-19 crisis is over as customers are adapting to the virtual world. And, so it’d be best for all organisations to improve their technology to be more user-friendly for the new era.