Eric Rapkin, Real Estate Practice Chair, commented to Retail Dive how the COVID-19 vaccine may impact retail stores. According to the publication, retailers have been hit particularly hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, as many stores were forced to shut down in an effort to contain the virus. Grocery stores and mass merchants, which were allowed to remain open or sell online, have done well.
"Until there's an effective vaccine, we're not going to be able to know how we're going to land and what businesses are going to be successful,” he said. "My sense is that once there's a vaccine that proves to be effective, we're going to see the floodgates open."
Rapkin continued, "This year was hopefully a year like none we'll ever see. But what was true before the pandemic is still true. You can't just be physical, you can't just be virtual. You have to have a full seamless application of physical and virtual that all connect so the customer can shop and buy and return at whatever platform they want to. The retailers that best figure that out are the ones that are going to succeed."