Things to Consider As You Re-Open
A Note From the 3 Dots Team
We know you’ve had more than a full plate with all of the added responsibilities and concerns that have come along with the Corona Virus Pandemic. On top of all you’re been juggling to keep you store operational, now many of you are also grappling with what it looks like to soon be able to open your doors again.
While none of us are doctors here at 3 Dots Design, we do call ourselves “Retail Scientists” because we spend so much of our time designing, visiting and re-arranging specialty retail spaces. When the pandemic first hit, we immediately started discussing the types of impact we would see inside the physical space of your store and adjustments that would need to be made to ensure peace of mind and safety for your customers. Of course your local and state requirements are your first line of defense for all safety guidelines in your store, but we thought it might be helpful to share some of the ideas that we’ve come up with throughout our discussions both within our team and with other retailers both in and outside of our channel.
The article to follow does just that. I hope you find some of the suggestions helpful and if nothing else, maybe they get you thinking about how you can adjust some of these concepts to apply more directly to your store. Best of luck to all of you as you navigate this new process of re-opening and please reach out if we can help along the way.
Things to Consider As You Re-Open…
What adjustments do you have to make to your store before re-opening? This is the million dollar question that every retailer has been asking these past few weeks. What types of safety precautions and procedural changes are going to be necessary to not only ensure the safety of your staff and customers, but almost equally as important, ensure that your customers FEEL safe enough to leave their homes and decide to enter your store again? After sitting in on several retail webinars outside of our specialty channel, it has become abundantly clear that the task of creating a mental and emotional level of comfort with your customers is going to present even more challenges than adhering to the actual safety guidelines that will be required. Why? Because that piece is intangible. It’s difficult to know exactly HOW MUCH is enough to quell the anxiety of a nervous customer but in our opinion, no reasonable amount of effort to ensure their comfort is too much. If you can implement any process or protocol that helps you regain your customer’s trust, then it’s worth your time and effort.
I’m sure you’re all familiar with the important safety signs, sanitizer displays, floor stickers and sneeze guards that have been circling around on email strings as “ retail must haves” before you re-open, but what about the merchandising of your space? Are there additional things you can do within your store walls that will help ensure further safety for your customers and help to regain their trust?
STORE LAYOUT…
Take a close look at the positioning of your floor fixtures. Are they set up in a way that 1) allows your customers to SAFELY walk throughout your entire space without having to touch any product or fixtures at all? and 2) do they ever lead your customers to a potential dead end, or area where they may feel uncomfortably close to another shopper should they decide to follow a similar path? In other words, ALL fixtures should allow for your customer to navigate them with ease AND have a “way out” in the opposite direction, should another customer approach.
Shoe fitting-If you are still performing shoe fitting, are the benches or chairs situated in a way so that even if somebody is sitting on each one of them at the same time, there is adequate space between everybody? Should you consider placing freestanding plexiglass dividers between any of the benches to further ensure social distancing?
Cash wrap – Do you have a VERY clear process for customers to approach the counter, handle the transaction quickly and with minimal contact and then have them exit WITHOUT getting in the way of other customers who may be needing to pay? I realize most stores will have restrictions on how many customers can be in the store at the same time, but even with less shoppers, you don’t want them bumping in to each other, or even getting close to doing so.
Floor stickers with directional arrows are a good place to start, as well as freestanding acrylic dividers to separate check out lanes if you’ve got multiple stations running at the same time. If you’ve only got one register operating right now, perhaps lining the approach to it with some dividers would be helpful, allowing for a clear exit for your customer near the counter so that they don’t have to backtrack in to the next customer in line behind them.
The main thing is that you’re stepping back and looking at all areas of your space. If you have any potential pinch points in your traffic flow, then re-arrange or better yet, remove a fixture or two from the floor right now to open things up.
MERCHANDISING…
In general throughout your store, look at the merchandising on your walls and try to pull some product wherever you can, allowing for some blank space between categories. This added "breathing room" between categories will create some forced distance between customers when shopping. The categories of apparel and nutrition stand out to us as potentially higher risk for your customers to shop than others due to their “high touch” nature.
APPAREL...
Multiple people pulling fitted clothing over their head (which means nose and mouth) potentially contaminating fabrics without knowing it along the way. Now, based on all of my research, a porous fabric is unlikely to hold on to these viruses for longer than 24-36 hours (again, I’m NOT a doctor and am just passing on information I’ve read myself), however, within that period of time, it’s still possible for several customers to touch or try on the same item so how do we fix this?
We had an idea or two…
Not allowing trying on of apparel (sounds crazy but this whole situation is crazy). Create a simple sign stating that to help mitigage the risk of transferring the COVID 19 virus through our apparel, we have temporarily suspending any trying on in the store. If a customers wants to purchase it, try it on at home and return later, you will know it has been touched and can be quarantined for several days in a “dirty” zone in your store where touched items take a time out until possible virus droplets have left town.
Featuring 4-5 key outfits on mannequins at a time and pulling ALL other apparel off the floor to be kept in the backroom. Create a sign that states “We have lots of sizes in the back, but to mitigate the spread of the COVID 19 virus through our apparel, our gloved and masked staff members will happily retrieve the size and style you are interested in purchasing. We’re sorry, we are not allowing in store trying on at this time.” Your staff can safely go pull what is requested and same as in the first scenario, if a return happens later with this product, you can quarantine it properly before returning it to inventory.
Less apparel on the floor in general is a good idea right now. Pull some amount off the floor (based on how crowded this area is), in order to create less points of human contact in this category. Try to make it so more apparel can be seen easily WITHOUT having to thumb through packed fixtures. Rotate some new pieces in weekly, but contain it to as few floor fixtures as possible. Less product, less fixtures, less points of contact are all good things right now, as it pertains to the safety of your customers.
NUTRITION...
It goes without saying that sampling is OUT, but beyond that, what about customers thumbing through the gels, bars or other small items that are often displayed in boxes or bins? Is it a concern to be increasing the number of points of contact between customers and these products? And if so, are there any other options to sell this category? Well, maybe…
What about pulling backstock of nutrition out of the front area, similarly to what we suggested for apparel and have signs indicating that backstock can be easily pulled by safe staff members for those interested in larger nutrition purchases. The thought is that much like a high end bakery, when display only products are in the cases, perhaps consider displaying singles of your top nutrition products only right now. When people want several bars or gels, they can ask a staff member to go grab them and put them in a bag in the back to eliminate sorting through all the bins on the floor fixture. More work? Absolutely. Less points of human contact on a product to be consumed? Absolutely.
Other nutrition ideas we came up with…perhaps for the next couple of months, all nutrition sales can be online only with a minimum purchase of “x” units in order to encourage stocking up on these products. That eliminates the temptation of sorting through edible products on the floor all together. Or, if you have a glass display case with some room, put nutrition behind glass for now. This will require a staff member to pull out what the customer is looking for and safely handling product only once.
Remember, all of these ideas are hopefully for the short term only and if your customers don’t feel safe (or aren’t safe), they’re not coming back. Losing some product on the floor right now or adding some steps to your staff service protocol are small prices to pay for gaining the trust and comfort level of your customers for the long term. They want to support you and all local businesses, but they have to feel safe in doing so.
We wish you the best as you work through your re-opening!
The 3 Dots Design Team