LEISURE & RETAIL
SHOPPING CENTRES: ARE THEY SAFE?
How are retail centres coping with the new normal – and how is cleaning and hygiene being stepped up to keep everyone safe, asks Tork manufacturer Essity’s Stuart Hands?
Shopping, like everything else, is undergoing a significant shift. When stores finally opened in June we found our retail centres to be vastly different from how we remembered them. The joys of shopping have traditionally included browsing with friends, trying on clothes and testing items such as perfume and make-up.
The interactive nature of shopping - impossible to recreate online – is one of the few areas in which high street stores have traditionally had the edge over internet outlets. Other advantages of physical shops include fitting rooms, coffee shops and the ability to pick up and touch items to assess their quality before buying.
However, practices such as handling goods, testing make- up and using the fitting rooms are all being strongly discouraged - if not outlawed - in today’s post-COVID world. The coffee shops are also subject to lengthy queues and social-distancing measures.
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, retail centres were struggling to lure people away from their screens and into a physical shop. So, what impact will the ‘new norm’ have on shoppers’ behaviour and on high street profits?
Studies carried out before the shops reopened in June highlighted a newly-cautious nation reluctant to head back to the stores. A survey carried out by shopping giant
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Intu revealed that 57% of shoppers expected to have a heightened awareness of hygiene and sanitation at the shops than they had before the pandemic.
Around 75% said they would want to see compulsory hand sanitation, protective screens and limits on numbers put in place to make them feel comfortable about returning to retail centres, and an EY Future Consumer Index revealed that 80% of shoppers would feel uncomfortable trying on clothes in a store.
Extra cleaning measures at the shops can play a large part in reassuring customers that their premises are safe. And under new government guidelines, post-COVID shops need to pay greater attention to cleaning and hygiene than ever before.
The new rules state that trolleys, baskets, self-checkouts and coffee machines need to be cleaned regularly and that hand sanitiser stations should be provided for customers and staff. Hand-washing facilities should also be plentiful – but these are generally to be found in the washrooms. These are proving to be another sticking point for many retail centres.
Social-distancing guidelines inevitably lead to longer queues for the toilets, while rigorous cleaning regimes need to be applied in washrooms to keep customers safe.
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