Shoppers aren’t behaving as they were before the coronavirus pandemic. As some states begin to allow mall reopenings, retailers say they’re now seeing less browsing and more intentional purchasing. “For those that are shopping, I think they definitely have a purpose of coming in to buy something specific," Fran Horowitz, chief executive officer of Abercrombie & Fitch Co., said in an interview.
Consumer behavior in the U.S. was upended in mid-March when the Covid-19 outbreak led to mass retail shutdowns. People spurned purchases of apparel in favor of essential goods like groceries.
For those who did decide to spend on clothes, their options were largely limited to e-commerce. This played out in Abercrombie’s quarterly results.