Macy’s CEO Jeff Gennette said he expects the company’s physical locations to do better than some contemporaries as the company is considering numerous ways to accommodate customers.
He said everyone is “kind of looking at, ‘Hey, how’s the traffic going to be between Thanksgiving and Christmas or Hanukkah?’” he said on “Mad Money,” CNBC reported. “We’ve all got A, B, C — we call it the 2020 options because whatever comes our way, we have to have flexibility.”
For instance, he said the company plans to start holiday shopping season in early November, anticipating that people will be looking to put gifts under their families’ Christmas trees one way or the other. And he said the company’s brick-and-mortar locations could provide a kind of safety net via same-day delivery or curbside pickup options, CNBC reported.
Gennette also said eCommerce is doing well, with the company up 53 percent in that regard compared to the same time last year, according to CNBC.
The 2020 holiday season is expected to be a massive shift from previous years. While some stores began to close on Thanksgiving out of respect for families over the past several years, this year, large retailers are planning to close so as to avoid viral infections.
And in place of Thanksgiving Day shopping there will be a “values reset,” PYMNTS reported, which could take shape in the form of social issues, with Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals using donations to causes as motivation to shop. As Black Friday pricing has been in place for most of the year because of the pandemic, this might be extra pronounced.
Peggy Alford, PayPal’s executive vice president of global sales, spoke with PYMNTS earlier this month and said the key for retailers will be trying maintain low cart abandonment by keeping customers engaged through discount codes and digital reminders.
