The Walt Disney Company announced on Wednesday that it plans to permanently shut down at least 60 Disney Stores located in North America over the course of 2021. The company reportedly plans to shift more heavily into online sales and limit the number of physical locations that currently act as its stores.
The pandemic has changed how many people shop, creating more of an incentive to buy items online and avoid stores to maintain social-distancing and quarantine guidelines. According to The Wall Street Journal, this has affected many retailers that thrive off of an in-person store environment, such as shopping malls, which “have suffered losses.” However, retailers that operate mostly over the internet have done well. The Wall Street Journal reports that corporations like “Amazon.com Inc. or Target Corp, which has scaled up its e-commerce business, have seen their fortunes soar as consumers became more dependent on online shopping.”
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