Bankrupt Retailers Face A New Hurdle: Getting Rid Of Inventory

The nation’s brick-and-mortar retailers were undergoing a reckoning years before the pandemic led to shutdowns and a tanking economy, tipping more than a dozen major retailers into bankruptcy and prompting many others to thin their ranks. The result: Thousands of liquidation sales, at a time when many Americans are wary of in-store shopping or spending. Firms that specialize in winding down stores say liquidating now is markedly different from what it was before the pandemic. Companies are offering deeper discounts to win over consumers — with sales starting at 40 percent off instead of the usual 20 percent — as well as other incentives. Even then, results can be spotty: Proceeds from liquidation sales have fallen about 25 percent since the novel coronavirus took hold, according to Jim Schaye, chief executive of retail liquidation firm Eaton Hudson. “It’s like throwing a party and having nobody come,” he said. “People are just not running out to a J.C. Penney liquidation or a Lord & Taylor liquidation like they would have in the past. Even at 60 percent off, they’re saying: ‘So what? I don’t need it so I’m not going to buy it.’” Read more at The Washington Post.