Book your place as high street comes out of hibernation
Retailers will be welcoming customers back with a new way of shopping, writes
IRELAND’S biggest retailers are encouraging people to ‘‘book an appointment to shop’’ and avoid long queues, as the high street emerges from lockdown in the coming days.
Brown Thomas and Arnotts are leading the way with plans for a new online queuing system in a move that will encourage a cautious nation to step out and spend again.
It is hoped that ‘‘time slots’’ at the country’s most popular department stores and retail outlets will ease the problems of shopping under social distancing rules.
This weekend a wellplaced industry source told the Sunday Independent that businesses are playing a waiting game to see what impact Covid-19 has had on Irish consumers.
And they are cautiously planning for the best-case scenario: “If only a certain number of people show up, then there won’t be a need for a pre-book queuing system. But if more people than anticipated arrive, a booking system will be introduced on the Brown Thomas and Arnotts phone apps so people can make an appointment for an allocated time slot and avoid the hassle of queueing.”
The Sunday Independent also understands that porters will be on hand at Brown Thomas to look out for elderly shoppers, should they be forced to queue. It is expected that the porters will be able to usher elderly customers inside.
Once through the doors, customers will be brought on ‘‘a journey’’, via a oneway system, which will help their experience run smoothly.
Physical contact and the testing of products will no longer be allowed at in-store beauty counters so women hoping for one-on-one make-up artist tutorials will have to wait.
There will also be no respite for customers at in-store cafes or restaurants, which are due to open in the next phase of the plan.
Arnold Dillon, director of Retail Ireland, said there had already been significant changes to shopping behaviour in recent months and customers could expect to see some of those patterns “bedding down”.
“We will be reopening to a very different type of shopping experience and these changes have already been reflected in how people are shopping while under lockdown,” Dillon explained.
“Look at how people have been food shopping — they are thinking ahead, reducing the number of times they go to a store and when they do go, they are spending more. So it is possible we will see that trend carry through in other areas.
“There has also been a much more ‘functional’ approach to shopping in recent weeks. So that might carry through in shopping centres which, previously had been seen as a places that you would meet friends, get coffee together and have a ‘day out’.”
Dillon also said there will be “more scope to shop locally”.
“The fact that a lot more
people are working from home could influence their shopping habits so there is a concern for shops who rely on office workers going to work in the city centre, if people are doing most of their shopping and eating at home.”
Meanwhile, David Fitzsimons, director of Crest Ireland, which conducts mystery shopping and behavioural analysis for leading retailers, said he believed there will be three key phases for shoppers in
the coming months.
These include the
‘‘pent up’’ phase, the ‘‘rehibernation’’ phase and finally the ‘‘recovery’’ phase, all of which are influenced by people’s financial psychology, and health and safety psychology.
He explained: “First there will be a release of some pent up demand”.
But he believed it may not last long.
“The old emotional ‘experiential’ element of retail shopping is gone
for the foreseeable future. Due to health and safety concerns, shopping has become ‘functional’ and retailers are self-inflicting revenue declines by closing certain departments.
“So, for example, there will be no more application or testing in make up departments — you will either ‘buy’ or ‘not buy’ and these type of changes will lead people to begin the re-hibernation phase.
“This is where people will question the necessity of going to the shops at all because shopping will be so functional in the shortterm and it will lack the enjoyment it once had.”
He said this will then lead to a dissipation in demand and refocus people towards online shopping.
“From that point, recovery will come — but it is going to take a while. It will take people a few months to realise and accept that shopping is enjoyable again and something we want to do,” he explained.
On the ‘‘pent up’’ phase, Fitzsimons said many sectors will not experience the phenomenon.
“We will see it in home sectors, garden departments, footwear and fashion stores. But we won’t see any pent up demand in food and coffee.
“When you come out of lockdown, you are not going to go and buy 100 coffees but you might have been sitting in your garden for the past few weeks making a long list of all things you’d like to get.”
Fitzsimons, who is the former founder and CEO of Retail Excellence Ireland, also said hope for the retail industry lies in the fact that people have saved significant sums of money in recent months.
“Everyone is realising they are financially better off as they cut down on the cost of commuting, petrol, lunches out and not going on holiday — also people are treating themselves to one or two treats. Already, in the UK, they are seeing the effect of that in the jewellery industry,” he said.
Meanwhile, Penneys has confirmed that it will reopen all Irish stores on Friday, June 12.
Fans of the high street fashion giant have been taking to social media to request information about the reopening for a number of weeks now and the announcement was met with joy yesterday afternoon.
In a statement, the retailer said that stores with street access will open on June 12, while stores located in shopping centres will open on June 15.
It added: ‘‘Employee and customer safety is the highest priority in our preparations for reopening.
‘‘To help provide a safe environment in stores for our employees, social distancing protocols, hand sanitiser stations, perspex screens at tills and additional store cleaning will be among the measures in place.’’
Penneys also said that every second till will be closed and fitting rooms and cosmetic stands will be closed for the foreseeable future.
‘Shopping will become purely functional in the short term’