Unable to Stay Afloat Anymore, Increasingly More Non-food Retailers Pull Shutters Down For Good

Jerusalem, 18 November, 2020 (TPS) -- Bucharest, Nov 18 /Agerpres/ – Increasingly more non-food retailers are going bankrupt, unable to stay afloat on the market, the Romanian Retailers’ Organization – Roretail said in a release on Wednesday.

The organization has repeatedly sounded alarm, both publicly and through communications to decision-makers, about the extremely difficult situation of the Romanian non-food retailers. After 3 months during which the stores were closed by decision of the authorities, sales remained far below last year’s level even after reopening.

Sales in stores plunged on average 60 pct – 80 pct in recent months and the situation is extremely dramatic. Even Black Friday store sales were about 50 percent lower than in the 2019 edition. The first stores to enter bankruptcy are those of small companies that have no possibility of offsetting their losses from the local market from foreign revenues.

‘One after another, non-food retail stores are starting to shut down for good, like in a domino game. But this is not a game, it’s about local brands, employees and their families. We are talking about desperate situations and entrepreneurs who have run out of financial and emotional resources for holding on. There are already major difficulties with paying taxes and wages, not to mention rents and other operating expenses. The authorities carry the responsibility of taking and implementing fast the necessary decisions for saving this industry, just like in the majority of the European states, which have implemented as early since April measures to compensate for the devastating effects of the restrictions. Mall owners and administrators can no longer unilaterally save the situation. The authorities’ lack of action in the 12th hour will sentence non-food retail and modern trade as a whole to bankruptcy,’ said Roretail executive director Roxana Socaciu.

The Romanian Retailers’ Organization – Roretail is an association founded in 2014, which joins over 1,000 Romanian non-food and HoReCA retailers in shopping centers, gathering under its umbrella both national and international brands and totaling over 12,000 employees.