‘We’ve missed it’: Long lines form at U.K. shops
Long lines stretched along streets across England as shops selling items considered as nonessential during the coronavirus pandemic, such as sneakers and toys, welcomed customers on Monday for the first time since the U.K. was put into lockdown in late March.
Starved of the retail experience for the best part of three months, shoppers generally appeared to abide by the social distancing requirement to stay two meters (6-1/2 feet) apart as they awaited their turn to enter the stores.
Not everywhere, though — pushing and shoving was evident at the NikeTown store on Oxford Street, London’s world-famous shopping mecca, at its reopening.
For friends Dionne Sumner and Olivia Copeland, both 25, it was a far more orderly experience when they waited to get into their local budget clothes retailer Primark in Liverpool. Arriving at the store at 8:30 a.m., they queued for about 15 minutes before getting in.
“This has been planned, we’ve been really missing it,” Copeland said after spending more than 200 pounds ($250). “It is nice to get back out, it’s better than being stuck in the house.”
Monday’s reopening of shops, from department stores to booksellers and electronic retailers, only applies to England. Scotland and Wales are taking a more tentative approach to the easing of the coronavirus restrictions.
The new shopping experience is anything but normal, though.
Shops are limiting numbers and are providing hand sanitizers at the door as well as creating oneway traffic systems inside. Plastic screens protect workers from shoppers at payment counters and some shops will only take cards, not cash. At the Apple store on Regent Street in central London, staff checked customers’ temperatures and insisted upon face coverings.
Not all shops in England are reopening. Many say the social distancing guidelines are just too difficult and are urging the British government to reduce the 2-meter requirement.
Critics have also accused the government of being too hasty given still-high levels of daily coronavirus infections. The U.K., as a whole, has recorded 41,698 coronavirus-related deaths, the third highest in the world behind the United States and Brazil.
Customers are being encouraged to “be sensible” as the government seeks to reopen the economy “gradually and carefully.”
Figures last week showed that the U.K. economy shrank by 20% in April alone.
Despite the reopening, footfall is not expected to come anywhere near levels pre-lockdown.
At London’s Oxford Street, normally teeming with shoppers crowded shoulder-to-shoulder, businesses have installed scores of signs to ensure social distancing.
With virtually no tourists in town, London’s entire West End shopping and theater district is expected to see just 10% to 15% of its normal customers this week. International tourists now face a 14-day quarantine upon arrival in Britain.
Linda Pilkington, who owns a high-end perfume boutique off London’s designer and jewelery hub of Bond Street, says the shopping experience will inevitably be dulled because restaurants, theaters and other entertainment facilities remain closed.