COVID-Centric Retail Shopping

Canadian malls face a new type of normal as they take their first tentative steps toward reopening during COVID-19. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)

"From the moment you walk into our store, we want you to see something that's new. The sticky mat, the welcome table -- they're all triggers in the customer's mind that things are different now."
"We don't want this [employee's revised manual] to feel like a sterile or clinical interaction. With masks on, you may feel a bit awkward at first, but don't let that hold you up!"
"It's your job to still create a connection! [with the customer]."
Andrew McLean, Chief Commercial Officer, American Eagle Outfitters

"The customers who come in are coming in to buy. They are not coming in to look."
"This has been a two-month process of figuring out what it's going to take to make people feel secure. It's a new reality:Customers want to come back in, but they want to come back where they feel safe."
Jay Schottenstein, chief executive, chairman, American Eagle

"Experience has shown us that loosening restrictions and shelter-in-place orders means a resurgence of disease."
"Masks, temperature checks, hand hygiene -- they're all important as stores reopen, but there are still risks for increased transmission."
Robert Bednarczyk, professor of global health and epidemiology, Emory University

Hamburg: Shopping bags from fashion chain Zara. Photo: Bodo Marks/dpa

"Retailers are starting to consider more than just the cleanliness of their stores."
"They're thinking about merchandising, about where things go. How can they make it easier for people to shop?"
"This pandemic isn't going to level off. It's going to be a long roller-coaster."
Wendy Liebmann, chief executive, WSL Strategic Retail consulting firm, New York

So, how did your novel, enriched, exciting shopping trip go? Tell us all about it!

Oh, the irony! At the very time in recent history when bricks-and-mortar retailers were concerning themselves over falling sales in reaction to the growing popularity of online shopping, and they researched and analyzed down to the last aching dollar to arrive at a consensus that they had to collectively make shopping a more dynamic, exciting prospect for consumers, to make them want to come out to shop 'till they drop, and not want to leave the premises because there's more, much more to be seen. Along came SARS-CoV-2.

 

 

 

 

 

"The customer steps forward as the employee steps backward, so there's always that six-foot [1.8-metre space]."
"We feel it's a pretty safe journey. But I say pretty safe because, as you know, there are no guarantees right now."
Sid Keswani, Pandora jewellers

How everything has changed! Now the COVID-centric prevailing idea is in-and-out. No more leisure shopping, fingering the goods, casually trying on scads of clothing, testing makeup, hauling kiddies along so they can play with toys in the aisles. Shopping is about to become more deliberate, efficiently swifter, conscious and safer. As shoppers submit to new rules and regulations to become accustomed to a new reality. One that invites them to come in, and disinvites any undue contact or forbidden lingering.

Shoppers' temperatures are now being checked before entry at a number of retailers. Some even require that customers come by appointment. Beauty consultations, alterations services; forget all that. Unneeded frills. Bathrooms may no longer be accessible; pee before you go. Go when you get home. Some fitting rooms may remain open, and there will be a long wait for access. Returns will be placed in quarantine of up to 72 hours before they're placed back on shelves. They say.

American Eagle has invested in curbside pickup and infrared devices to measure temperature as customers walk by. Displays at entries once full of apparel now serve as "welcome tables" where bottles of hand sanitizer, disposable masks and sticky blue material to clean shoe soles are placed for obligatory use. Clothes on the shelves folded in a manner discouraging browsing with hands on the goods. The number of shoppers in each of their stores now strictly limited where a mobile app notifies customers when they may enter to shop.

Physical distancing in the age of COVID-19 the rule. (Anis Heydari/CBC)

Shopping in person is back on. Personable shopping is off. Shoppers will no longer flock to J.Crew, Neiman Marcus, Stage Stores and J.C.Penney; they're in bankruptcy, and likely more to follow, and forget about Pier 1. Those interactive displays that are so eye-catching and invite participation, just forget it; unsafe and vetoed. But the image projected is meant to be one of reassurance to potential customers; come to our establishment, shop for our wonderful goods in perfect safety. Fun? Not exactly.

New protocols have been enacted where employees or sales personnel as they're called, must be vigilant to disinfect door handles and fixtures should shoppers wish to use change rooms, and then only every other one; the rest to remain unused to create desirable space for complete security. The Danish jeweller Pandora moved machines to clean jewellery from backrooms to the selling floor to enable employees to sanitize each piece after handling.

Working at a retail establishment and wearing a mask? Smile. Really -- smile behind the mask because your eyes will reveal what the mask covers. Wash your hands repeatedly. The stores provide thermometers the employee must disinfect, then take their temperature with. Employees watch best-practice face mask tutorials to give them confidence in how to wear them, remove them and not feel constrained to smile.

You never know; there may be a candid camera following your every move.

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