Crisis Management: Big-box retailer advantage through lockdown is ‘unfair’

Ontario announced last week that starting Monday all non-essential retail stores in Toronto and Peel will be limited to curbside pick-up only for at least 28-days. Some retailers, including grocery, hardware and big box stores, are allowed to remain open with reduced capacity.

The Retail Council of Canada (RCC) and the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) are pushing the government to allow non-essential retailers to open, saying the lockdown threatens the survival of many small businesses that depend on the busy holiday shopping season.

The CFIB is also taking issue with the government’s decision to shutter non-essential businesses, while allowing big box stores such as Walmart and Costco to remain open.

As business strategy expert Mark Satov tells Yahoo Finance Canada's Alicja Siekierska, the advantage that big-box retailers is unfair to small businesses – but shutting down aisles within the stores that feature non-essential goods is not the right approach.