Humans, brands, plants, stores, pets, appliances, trends, cars (more on that later), shoes, planets and solar systems all die, eventually. Some are fortunate to live long and prosperous lives, while others’ lives are sadly cut short, sometimes through no fault of their own. Death is around us every day, but in 2020 we seem to be drowning in it. Covid-19 is a tsunami sweeping around the globe—unpredictable, relentless and deadly. But it’s easy to lose perspective amid a 24-7 news cycle that feeds off the virus. For example, more than 600,000 Americans die from cancer every year and the number is similar for heart disease. More than 500,000 Americans have died from opioid overdoses in the last decade or so. And studies estimate that around 15,000 stores have closed just since 2019—a seemingly tame number in comparison to the previous statistics, but it’s all relative. That death count, too, is spiking in 2020. Actually, it’s fast-approaching pandemic levels.
Then there’s our industry: the virus, the so-called Retail Apocalypse, record unemployment, changing consumer shopping habits, social upheaval…all are taking an unprecedented toll. Some estimates put the combined tally of people furloughed and fired in our industry at a staggering 60 percent at the height of the store closures this spring. That’s plague–level destruction, if the industry fails to recover significantly. Worse, it’s striking every segment of the supply chain—simultaneously. No one is immune, from the C-suite to the stockroom. The Two Ten Footwear Foundation is facing an onslaught of assistance requests like never before in its 81-year history—10 times the normal rate. The industry-funded charity has granted nearly $2.6 million to 4,200 footwear colleagues nationwide since mid-March. The need anticipated over the 2021–2022 fiscal years is expected to be between $5 million and $10 million. (Read more about what Two Ten is doing to answer the call on p. 10.)