During quarantine, I don’t really miss going out or spending time with other people, but man I miss researching and buying products I don’t need and probably won’t ever use. Apparently, I’m not the only one abstaining. “Retail spending in the United States nosedived again last month, dropping a record 16.4% as people avoided restaurants, bars, stores and malls during the coronavirus pandemic.” Clothing stores were the hardest hit taking a nearly 80% hit (it doesn’t help that since business moved to Zoom, none of us needs to wear anything below the waist). If you’re wondering why retailers haven’t been hit even harder, considering most of them have been closed, it’s because of the strength of online sales (and not just those related to NextDraft shirts and sweatshirts flying off the virtual shelves).

+ As we see some large, well-known retailers go bust, it’s worth noting that the pandemic often isn’t the the only cause of death. NYT: The Pandemic Helped Topple Two Retailers. So Did Private Equity. “Like many other retailers, J. Crew and Neiman over the past decade paid hundreds of millions of dollars in interest and fees to their new owners, when they needed to spend money to adapt to a shifting retail environment. And when the pandemic wiped out much of their sales, neither had anywhere to go for relief except court.” (Maybe private equity should buy out Covid19. It would probably die off too…)