Gap will reopen 800 stores, but its ‘biggest challenge’ is a lack of uniform rules
The “biggest challenge” for Gap with the reopenings is “understanding the unique requirements by county and state,” CEO Sonia Syngal said in an interview with CNN.
“There’s such a big range — and it takes quite a bit time to interpret the differences —rather than have something that is more consistent,” she added. “As retailers, we really need that partnership from government.”
Other corporate leaders have called on government leaders to help guide their return.
“My hope is that government can help in giving us all some common standards, otherwise, we may return to work but a client we call on may have a different standard,” Krishna said in an interview with CNN’s Julia Chatterley. “That would cause a lot of mayhem.”
Gap’s first stores will open in Texas this weekend. The company has more than 2,750 total stores in North America, but it can’t reopen all of them because some states have restricted “non-essential” retailers from opening to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
Their plans come as the pandemic hits an already weakened brick-and-mortar retail industry, forcing steep sales drops, worker furloughs and layoffs.
Syngal said in an interview that the company was “using this crisis as an opportunity to really think about what we want our business to look like in the future.”