Retailers are ready to reopen after longer wait for green light
NON-ESSENTIAL retailers say they are “excited and prepared” to reopen after they were given the goahead to open their doors on April 12.
But some said they had long been kept in the dark about when they would finally be able to reopen and how. They had been expecting to reopen their doors to the public on March 15 and will now reopen on the same date as retailers in England.
As most had already prepared to open last month, many shop owners in Wales have spent the past month putting the final touches to the work they have been doing throughout lockdown.
This means many customers returning to their favourite independent Welsh stores will see a common theme with freshly painted fixtures and fittings. Tracey Bateman from the Oyster Gallery, an interior shop in Mumbles, says she’s painted every surface she can.
She spoke of her disappointment at being unable to open in March, and had prepared her shop with Easter stock as well as a full Easter window display in anticipation.
“All the shops were ready to open, we had everything decorated that week for Easter,” she said.
“We had pre-ordered tens of thousands of pounds of stock ready. The window display was decorated for Easter, we just need to change that now.
“My stock rooms are full with stuff for the summer, plants and garden furniture, we are fully prepared to reopen.”
She added that she believes smaller shops should be treated slightly different when it comes to easing lockdown restrictions.
“I do understand that more people go into larger shops, but what I can’t understand is we are strictly one in and one out. I would have gladly obeyed that for four weeks. If they had allowed small nonessential shops to reopen on a strict basis I would have been pleased with that. I have had people saying they are absolutely gutted for us.”
But while disappointed at having missed out on trade over the past week due to the nice weather, she is ultimately excited to reopen her doors and is grateful that her customers have been using the click and collect service.
“It is what it is, you can’t dwell on it or you won’t sleep at night. For the past 12 months, we have been closed for seven months of that,” she said.
“We have been able to do some other things, we applied for a grant that was to take your business in a different direction so we have someone working for us on our website now.”
Lucy Hywel, owner of That’s Lovely That in
Abergavenny, is extremely excited to reopen the shop after spending the past few months touching it up.
However, for Ms Hywel, the announcement is bittersweet, as she said businesses like hers have been left in the dark about reopening throughout the lockdown.
“Throughout this whole pandemic all our information has always been fed through the press. Up until the date, we were being fed that we were going to open (on March 15). We were all shocked, absolutely shocked. There is no process where this information is fed through to businesses, that is the problem.
“They need to be more transparent. There will be things they are thinking they want to do and then the figures won’t allow them to do it and they need to just say, ‘We are afraid we had hoped to open in March but we can’t and this is our thinking.’ We are all reasonable people.”
She added that allowing supermarkets to sell non-essential goods before other traders had been frustrating.
“They should not be selling these items in the first place. When Morrisons came to Abergavenny the planning allowed 20% of non-essential products. Maybe now we should look at whether these shops should be selling these items to give independent retailers a chance,” she said.
“Some of the florists have been devastated walking into supermarkets and seeing flowers when this is usually their busiest time of the year.”