Macy’s to reopen all of its stores in 68 weeks

Macy’s, one of the biggest department store chains in the United States, announced an ambitious plan Thursday to reopen all of its 775 locations, including Bloomingdale’s and Bluemercury, in the next six to eight weeks, the latest sign of how eager the nation’s largest retailers are to return to business.

The reopening plan will start Monday with 68 stores in Georgia, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas. Macy’s will reopen 50 more locations on May 11. The company temporarily closed its stores March 18 because of the coronavirus pandemic, causing the majority of its sales to disappear.

Macy’s expects that its reopened stores will bring in only about 15% to 20% of their typical business at first and “slowly build” from there, CEO Jeff Gennette said during a presentation. He acknowledged that it is an open question as to whether shoppers return.

“We’ll see how they respond, and based on that, we’ll be a lot smarter,” he said. “So I’m going to know a lot more by Tuesday of next week.”

The presentation illustrated what a pandemicera shopping experience might look like. There will be new protocols for fitting rooms and beauty counters, associates will wear companyissued cloth masks and sometimes gloves, hand sanitizer will be placed by elevators and escalators, and plexiglass barriers will be installed at cash registers. Stores will be filled with signs reminding customers to stay 6 feet from each other.

Only a limited number of fitting rooms will be open and items that have been tried on will not be returned to the sales floor for at least 24 hours. Returned items will also be held for 24 hours.

Beauty employees will offer “notouch consultations” and suspend any spalike services. Cards sprayed with fragrances will be given out only on request. Earpiercing, brafitting and alteration services will be temporarily suspended. Dress shirts will not be available to try on. And customers will need to use hand sanitizer before they try on jewelry or watches.