Some of the many businesses forced to close by the pandemic will not open again. The proximate cause was the need for people to keep a distance from one another, but the entire brick-and-mortar retail sector was already ailing.
And COVID-19 made it a lot sicker. The digital marketing company Zenreachpulled in figures showing recent retail walk-ins running about 35% of last year's traffic.
And first reports from Thanksgiving weekend show that holiday shopping was far below norms. John Kelly is CEO of Zenreach and our guest, filling in gaps in our recent retail knowledge.