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Bloomberg
Harrods opened its first outlet store only days after announcing hundreds of job cuts — moves that the London luxury emporium’s managing director said are necessary to adapt to the realities of a post-lockdown retail landscape.
“I don’t think people understand how painful the last 90 days has been,†Michael Ward said in an interview while
walking through the new site in the UK capital’s Westfield shopping mall.
During the shutdowns aimed at containing the coronavirus, unsold goods piled up at
Harrods’s million-square-foot flagship store in London’s Knightsbridge district. That site has reopened, but with safety restrictions and reduced hours that limit customer traffic.
Now, shoppers can hunt for bargains in 80,000 square feet of space set over two floors at the mall in West London. Ward said Harrods snapped up the store as soon as its previous tenant, Debenhams, went into administration, a form of insolvency in Britain. Within five weeks it created the outlet, which is manned by 80 employees and selling an edited version of the brands available at the original site.