In this informative and entertaining session, retail economist (and COO of Lockehouse Retail Group) Garrick Brown, will explore how the pandemic has permanently changed the retail landscape. Also, how it hasn’t.

From eCommerce to restaurant delivery, the CoVid crisis vastly accelerated many of the trends that had been disrupting physical retail. But it also paused some of the most positive happenings in the sector, from the rise of experiential retail to a booming food and beverage sector to event-driven pop-ups. The market set records last year for retail and restaurant bankruptcies, as well as store closures. Outside of a few retail sectors that boomed, most tenants, landlords and lenders faced unprecedented challenges. Yet, retail has proven to be more resilient than anyone expected. The damage, though considerable, has been nowhere near what most analysts anticipated.

The silver lining in the dark cloud that has been the pandemic, is that after great—and accelerated—pain, much of the retail sector is entering a heathier place than it was before the CoVid crisis. Consumers are in the strongest shape in decades, dozens of chains are in expansion mode, retail IPOs are exploding, and there are now fewer concepts on bankruptcy watch lists than there were in 2019. In this session, Brown won’t just explore the winners and losers of the pandemic, and the how’s and the why’s… but how the landscape has, and will, shift in the post-CoVid world.