Popular kids' clothing store The Children's Place is closing around 625 brick-and-mortar US locations over the next 20 months. According to a conference-call transcription about the company's 2020 earnings [1], reps for The Children's Place said the COVID-19 outbreak "significantly increased" its original closing plans, as ecommerce sales have picked up since the pandemic began. The Children's Place previously planned to close more than 300 stores by the end of 2021, but the total has jumped to approximately 625 due to the impact of the coronavirus.
"As ecommerce demand has accelerated, partly as a result of COVID-19, we have significantly increased our planned store closures and are now targeting to close approximately 300 additional store locations by year-end fiscal 2021," Mike Scarpa, the company's chief financial officer and chief operating officer, explained on the conference call. "Our forecast now targets closing approximately 200 store locations in fiscal 2020, and approximately 100 store locations in fiscal 2021, resulting in approximately 625 store locations at year-end 2021."
Select stores that have been temporarily closed due to the COVID-19 outbreak will have liquidation sales once it's safe to open and before formally closing their doors. Additionally, The Children's Place is holding an online summer sale with items up to 80 percent off. In October 2019, The Children's Place announced that it acquired Gymboree [3] — one of its competitors — after it filed for bankruptcy.