The American clothing chain has announced that it is likely that all of its stores across Europe, which amount to nearly 120, will close.
Like many other retailers, Gap has been hit hard by the impacts of the Coronavirus pandemic given a number of forced store closures across the world. The company reported a $62M loss in the second quarter despite seeing a positive performance from their e-commerce sales. They also recorded that Europe only contributed to 2 per cent of Gap’s sales in the first half of 2020.
The company announced the news via a statement posted on their website from Mark Breitbard, President and Chief Executive Officer that confirmed that a review of options for business operations across Europe was being undertaken and that stores in the UK, France, Ireland and Italy could close as a result of this.
The company did say that they are looking to external partnerships to continue to have a presence in the European market and that franchise partnerships will be crucial moving forward to help maintain operations across the continent with a relatively low cost.
