Return to shopping will be balancing act
Stores struggle to keep customers safe while getting back to business
VANCOUVER—Inside the third largest mall in Canada, shoppers surge from store to store in a state of wonder.
Nearly everyone is ignoring the directional arrow stickers on the floor and struggling to keep distanced from one another, but it appears as though more than half are wearing masks.
“It’s my first time shopping for something besides groceries!” one woman exclaims, as she stops at a window display and nearly collides with someone behind her who was looking down at his phone.
A flurry of apologies later, the shoppers are back to navigating the sprawling Metropolis at Metrotown mall in Burnaby, B.C., where the majority of businesses have now re-opened as the economy gets going again following the peak of the COVID-19 lockdown.
As stores and some malls across the country see their first influx of customers in months, they’re struggling with the balance of keeping everyone safe while trying to get back to much needed business.
Customers, on the other hand, just seem to be happy to be out of their homes on this recent day. That may explain why many aren’t paying close attention to instructions.
“Please, use the sanitizer!” a shoe store clerk calls from behind a cashier counter while ringing in a purchase. Her voice is muffled from behind her thick cloth mask, and the family just stops and stares at her in confusion.
They look down at a low table, where a large jug of sanitizer is perched, but make no moves to bend down to use it.
The clerk hurries over to the entrance, picks up the jug and deftly deposits a squirt of sanitizer onto each cheerfully outstretched hand.
The reopening of businesses in recent weeks has been accompanied by stringent social distancing policies.
What seems to confuse customers is that rules can vary from store to store. Provincial health and safety guidelines also differ, since COVID-19 cases have been more prevalent in some places in Canada than others — and reopenings have come at a staggered pace nationwide.
For example, B.C.’s COVID-19 Safety Plan recommends that stores allow for five square metres of unencumbered retail floor space per person, but many businesses set maximum occupancies lower than that.
Some stores require customers to use hand sanitizer and wear face coverings before entering, while for others, complimentary masks and sanitizer are available but optional.
It can be stressful for retailers to continuously communicate and enforce COVID-19 safety rules, says Diane J Brisebois, CEO of the Retail Council of Canada, which represents about 45,000 businesses.
In late May, police issued a statement about an incident back in April in which two Toronto convenience store owners were allegedly assaulted after they tried to remove a customer for not wearing a mask.
When the two staff members tried to escort a customer without a mask out of the store, the woman allegedly slapped one of the staff members on the face and then “stated she would have someone come back to deal with them.”
Four men later came and assaulted a staff member, police said. Various bylaws allow businesses to refuse service to customers who refuse to comply with their safety rules.
James Ho, floor manager of Oak and Fort at Metropolis at Metrotown mall, says he would love to be able to serve more customers in the store at once, but he needs to prioritize everyone’s safety.
“Most customers are pretty knowledgeable and do their part. There are people who get frustrated to have to line up and wait outside, but we will always choose safety over someone’s feelings.”
Oak and Fort staff are required to wear masks, sanitize their hands regularly, clean the changing rooms frequently and use a hot steam presser on clothes after each customer tries on a garment.
At another clothing store, Couturist, all customers as well as employees must wear masks.
“It’s tough for us because we opened our shop here in February and then in March, everything shut down,” says executive director Riko Wang, referring to financial difficulties that many retailers are experiencing.
While Wang hopes business will pick up, she echoes other store managers’ sentiments that safety is more important than profit.
Wang says she decided to ask everyone to wear masks because public health experts say that when two people wear masks, they are protecting each other.
Most of her customers have no problem with the policy, but a couple were unhappy with the rule and decided to leave.
“We supply customers with masks if they don’t have one.
But some people are just not comfortable wearing masks … everyone has been polite about it, though,” she says.
Brisebois, CEO of the retail council, says she has heard plenty of anecdotes from business members about flustered — and sometimes irate — customers.
“People have been mostly staying at home for two months, and they’re eager to return to normalcy. It’s natural for customers walking around, when seeing all the different store rules, to think, ‘What is happening?’ ”
But Brisebois says there are some simple things businesses can do to alleviate confusion and anxiety among customers.
“You can never put up too many signs,” she advises. “Communicate, communicate, communicate. Provide staff with conflict de-escalation training, and put someone at the entrance of the store to explain to customers why the rules are in place.”
At another mall in the Metro Vancouver area, Coquitlam Centre, a group of teenagers had just spent a Sunday afternoon browsing from store to store. “It feels normal. It feels nice! It’s also different because there are lineups and arrows on the floor you have to follow,” Mackenzie Quinn, 15, says.
The girls carried their own hand sanitizers in their purses, which they say makes things easier.
As for following the rules for each store, “It’s not a problem at all,” 14-year-old Natalia Pereza says.