Retailers try to fashion a way to get back to normal
‘ONLY six more sleeps’, the small fashion boutiques were excitedly tweeting at the beginning of the week as they counted down to reopening their doors after 11 weeks of lockdown.
If they thought they would have a honeymoon period, opening three weeks before the larger stores because of their ‘small’ size, they were mistaken.
By midweek, the Brown Thomas Arnotts group of sister department stores had announced they would be opening in the middle of next week, pivoting with a series of ‘small format’ shops-within-a-store plus two high-end, designer boutiques, all with their own independent access onto the street. By yesterday afternoon, the floodgates had opened and it was announced that shopping malls can open on June 15, almost two months ahead of the their original Phase 5 roadmap date of August 10.
Jean McCabe, deputy chair of Retail Excellence Ireland, has welcomed the decision to reopen the economy and all retail.
Getting back to retail next week won’t be without its challenges. The two buzzwords in the industry – ‘experiential’ and ‘dwell-time’ – are challenged in the opening weeks, what with staggered hours, limits on numbers in stores and the introduction of shopping by appointment, which helps with social distancing.
And in another twist for the customer returning to the bricks-andmortar experience after almost three months, it won’t be so much about spending the euros as to where to spend a cent. Chains like Marks & Spencer, which is opening fashion in 15 stores on Monday, won’t have toilets available or changing rooms open. Brown Thomas and Arnotts, which will open Dublin stores on Wednesday followed by regional stores in Cork, Limerick and Galway on Thursday, will have toilets open but they will not have restaurants open.
Marks & Spencer, which had the fortunate position, like Dunnes Stores, of being able to sell some clothing to customers going in to buy food, has confirmed it is opening without restaurants – apart from its takeaway service. With social distancing still very high on everyone’s agenda, if you are looking for a bra fitting, think again. That’s out of the question due to social distancing.
This weekend, shops will be burning the midnight oil trying to get ready for the extra-early start date of June 15.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said yesterday that “the summer is not lost”, but the reality for many fashion stores which didn’t have online to fall back on during lockdown, is that they will have a very limited run at selling full-price summer stock.
Designer Louise Kennedy said they will not be going into sale when they reopen her Georgian townhouse store on Merrion Square on Monday “because these are classic, timeless pieces that will carry right through”.
She added: “We were very fortunate. We had a very good start to the season so we are happy with our stocking levels to take us through.
“Some of the brides have decided to go for smaller weddings but they are determined to go ahead. We have definitely seen special dresses going ahead but in smaller numbers and that again is very positive,” she said.
In this new normal of retail, the ‘art of the mooch’ has had to be rewritten to take social distancing into account. Open-air destinations like Kildare Village are expected to open in the middle of the month but nothing has been confirmed by Value Retailer, which has similar discount villages around the world.
Initial teething headaches will involve extensive steaming of clothes after they have been tried on or returned. The issue is having to take popular looks or key sizes out of the retail chain and put them into quarantine.
Even before they open their doors next week to welcome their first customers in months, some indie boutiques are doing serious navel-gazing on what they would need to do in order to stay open if a second lockdown happened.
They may talk amongst themselves about selling food in order to qualify as an ‘essential service’ and stay open.
The hardware shop that stocked dog food was able to trade during lockdown and traders won’t waste time in thinking outside the box.
If you suddenly see fashion boutiques opening hatch windows for fancy coffee sales, it’s because they want to give themselves scope for a point-and-buy option down the road.
David O’Connor, general manager of the Louis Copeland menswear stores, says that, going forward, “people are going to be 90pc down the sales funnel before they actually step into a shop for a fitting from now on”.
He added: “The old-style ‘having a look around’ will be now done on the website which has moved to the very centre of our business, and the stores are an attachment.”
In this new normal, the ‘art of the mooch’ has been rewritten