Images of railings are about to fill our social media feeds as shoppers are corralled like cattle to avoid the spread of Covid-19. As more and more chandleries and independent outlets open their doors from today, those railings’ images might herald the resurgence of independent outlets, the small stores, as shoppers take advantage of quiet locations and less queuing times.
Retailers have been told to make every effort to comply with social distancing, and it won’t be long until we all become connoisseurs of the Covid Customer Experience, whether as customers, or from the other side of the counter.
Chris Legg, owner of Kildale Marine, is prepared. His chandlery has offered an outdoor collection point already, and now he’s ready to let people enter the store at Hull Marina, Yorkshire.
“We’ve worked out estimates of how many people we can fit in at one time,” he says. “We’re going with three at the moment. We’ve decided to stay low initially to see how well people adhere to it.
“On a busy day we used to have two or three groups of five, lots of visitors from the marina. Now three feels like a comfy number for how many we can serve.
“It’s going to be an interesting few months.”
If stores can’t comply with social distancing, according to the Retail Gazette, mitigating measures including the standard should be taken, such as limiting the number of customers, encouraging them to shop alone, using contactless payment where possible, using outside space for queuing, and only using fitting rooms where necessary.
But what may surprise many shoppers is that, according to The Guardian, goods that have been returned to stores will need to be quarantined for up to 72 hours before they can be placed back on shelves – so expect to see racks of strictly non-touchable merchandise.
“We sell quite a bit of clothing and that’s got to be quarantined if it’s returned. We’ve got a separate rail set-up for that,” says Legg.
The full government guidance is available online.
It’ll take time for us all to become accustomed to the ‘new normal’, but that is a fluid concept in itself. When speaking to The Independent, Professor Joshua Bamfield, director at the Centre for Retail Research, says that he believes relaxation will follow later this year.
“In stage one there will be rigorous social distancing, which will also mean no trying on of clothes and a problem about ‘returns’. Shopping for clothes won’t be as friendly and casual as it has often been in the past,” he says.
Bamfield predicts that stage two will take place towards the end of 2020, when social distancing rules will be “gradually dismantled by the government and shopping becomes more normal”.
“Retailers have to manage the process of keeping shoppers and staff safe and selling merchandise and there may be a creeping liberalisation (e.g. allowing more people into stores at a time) as autumn winds on,” he says. “But it is going to be really difficult for everyone large and small, out-of-town megastore or small gents’ outfitters. The rules as now set out will make shopping for clothes no fun at all.”
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