Next shuts website for the day only hours after reopening
Next reopened its website on Tuesday, only to shut it again less than two hours later after meeting its daily order target.
The clothing retailer resumed its online operations at 7am on Tuesday, almost three weeks after pulling the plug because of because of concerns about the safety of staff in its warehouses during the coronavirus crisis.
Next began taking orders for children’s clothing and small homewares after putting extra safety measures in place, including cleaning kits and staff tabards marked on the back with the message “stay 2 metres apart”.
However, the company rapidly closed its website until Wednesday as it said it had met its daily order limit, reflecting the reduced capacity at its sites. It stopped taking new orders just after 8am, but allowed those with items already in their online baskets about 25 minutes to finish up.
The relaunch of Next’s online operation came as the company’s executives said they would be waiving 20% of their salaries, during the “challenging period” of the coronavirus outbreak. If the cut covered a year’s worth of pay it would amount to a salary reduction of more than £160,000 for Next’s chief executive, Lord Wolfson. The retailer’s bosses are also deferring this year’s bonus payments which totalled £350,000 for Wolfson. However, a longterm share bonus, valued at £1.7m in the accounts, took his total haul for last year to more than £3m, his biggest payout since 2016.
A statement on the website said: “In order to operate our warehouse safely, we are limiting the number of warehouse colleagues working at any time, and so we will limit the number of customer orders we can take each day.
“We have successfully tested opening and taking a limited number of orders today. Please come back again tomorrow morning.”
Analysts at broking firm Peel Hunt said: “Next hit this daily limit before 8.30am today, suggesting customer demand remains high as ever.” The analysts suggested that the retailer, which sells a number of other clothing brands as well as its own items, would benefit from an industry-wide effort to clear spring and summer stock that has piled up in warehouses during the high street shutdown.
However, Next has predicted that disruption stemming from the out
break could wipe £1bn off this year’s sales.
Next closed its online operation in late March after concern about the safety of workers in its warehouses and criticism of the continued operation of online stores selling goods considered non-essential.
The high street chain River Island and the luxury fashion retailer Net-APorter have also stopped making online deliveries while Asos has come under fire for poor conditions at its Barnsley warehouse.
Next said it had asked for volunteers from its staff to return to work this week and consulted with the Usdaw union on how to select those suitable. About 3,000 volunteers have come forward so far.
The company said it would not be using workers with a temperature, those classified as vulnerable because of health conditions, or who lived with someone vulnerable, or anyone who needed to take public transport to work.
Each member of staff returning to work will receive special training, a process which is expected to take at least several days during which time the number of orders being processed will gradually ramp up.