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What’s in store

The pandemic threatens devastation to the retail industry that built America

IN ALMOST all its modern crises, America has looked to its merchants for leadership. In 1914 John Wanamaker, the greatest retailer of the age, made headlines by dispatching 2,000 tons of food aid to Belgium-then suggesting America buy the little country to make (1)the peace. In 1942 his New York rival, Macy’s, announced it was cancelling its annual Thanksgiving parade and donating 650 pounds of balloon rubber to the war effort: (2)“We’ve enlisted!” Department stores, (3)America’s temples of commerce, could always be relied upon to sell war bonds with panache. In a Younkers store in Des Moines, Iowa, a coffin for Adolf Hitler was lowered mechanically from the ceiling to the floor whenever a sale was made.

Masters of self-promotion, the great retailers did not suffer by being associated with patriotism. Yet rather than deplore their opportunism, Americans celebrated the consumption (4)it was designed to promote. During the Great Depression, they rallied to the retailers’ “Buy Now” campaigns. Shopping was not merely the surest way to boost the economy; it was urbanites’ main community activity. As recently as September 2001, President George W. Bush hinted at (5)that dual truth when urging Americans to shrug off terrorism and hit the stores. By contrast, the current crisis is the first in over a century in which retailers have provided no comfort.

Online ones are thriving but unloved. The biggest, Amazon, (6)is battling damaging headlines over its patchy service and treatment of workers. Traditional retailers are meanwhile looking into the abyss. This week J.Crew filed for bankruptcy. JCPenney, whose low-cost innovations helped it survive the Depression and proved inspirational to one of its employees, Sam Walton, founder of Walmart, is also struggling under a heavy debt load. Macy’s, America’s biggest department store by sales, lost its place in the S&P last month while all its 775 stores were closed. It reopened 68 this week but expects them to do around 15% of their regular trade: more a death rattle than a recovery. By one estimate, over 300 department stores could go under by the end of next year.