Luxury Retailers around the world are perplexed with huge amount of unsold stock

The amount of piled up apparel stock in stores, warehouses and distribution centers is humungous due to the virus-imposed shutdown. Retailers are slowly opening around the world and they are in a dilemma about the predicament of their piled-up inventory.

The first option available is to keep the products in storage and offload them at a discounted price through retailers like TJ Maxx. This method can damage the brand image of top brands and this is only suitable for basic products which are not tied to a season or year.

Apparel chains such as Next and Adidas announced that they have stashed their unsold basics which they are planning to offer to the shoppers in the next year.

As per PVH Corp (mother company of Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein) , inventory will get worse when stashed because it is not like wine that will get better with age. 

In United States and Britain clothing sales in the month of April as compared with the previous year fell by 89% and 50% respectively.  Retailers feel that even after the easing of lockdown measures the sales figure might not rebound very soon.

Luxury brands are looking forward to selling their unsold stock through online resale marketplaces such as ‘Tradesy’, they sell the unsold stock by charging a commission on sales. A strong Consumers response was seen on these re-sale websites, it attracted a lot of consumers who are purchasing their favorite brands at a lower price.

Non-essential retailers are set to re-open on June 15 in Britain and on June 8 in New York.