As the US braces to reopen its economy, many brands are treading lightly, experimenting with opening a few stores to test the waters.

The parent entity of premium handbag maker Coach, Tapestry Inc. is the latest to announce its commitment to restarting business in North America and some countries in Europe.

The news comes after Tapestry said that for the first time in its 20 years as a public company, it registered the first adjusted loss.

Over 90 per cent of the company’s stores were either temporarily shut or operating on shorter hours, but the lack of footfall and consumer spending hit them hard.

In North America, the company reopened 40 stores to allow contactless curbside pickup services. Most of their outlets in China have already opened their doors to the public and the ones in Europe will restart business soon.

However, Tapestry expects the rebound to be slow in western countries as they open in a time of deep recession with millions of job losses and economic uncertainty.

Tapestry has already seen a 19.4 per cent fall in net sales to US $ 1.07 billion in its third quarter ended on 28 March and a net loss of US $ 677.1 million as compared to US $ 117.4 million for the same period a year ago.

The handbag category is such that it is driven by some external factors like going out to offices, parties, meetings, etc. and with new norms of social distancing and fear of venturing outside; the business might have to wait for consumers’ fears to dissipate and for normalcy to return in the society.