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STRATEGIES AND IDEAS

RETAIL ESTABLISHMENTS

Ideas for enhancing your customers’ comfort level, taking care of employees, rethinking floor plans, taking your online presence to the next level, and more.

Enhance your customer’s comfort level.

Make liberal use of signs, decals, placards, counter displays, etc. to communicate to customers the health and safety measures you are taking to keep employees and customers safe.
This can tie into an escalated district-wide awareness campaign promoting what businesses are doing to best ensure a clean, safe, and comfortable environment and experience.

Promote social distancing and good hygiene.

Work to ensure in-store social distancing and good hygiene measures are visible to customers. For example:
- Plexiglass at the checkout counter
- Signage reminding customers to maintain a 6-foot cushion
- Decals or markings on the floor to guide traffic flow and show six feet of separation
- Hand sanitizers at entrances and on counters
- The use of colorful/customized face masks and gloves, etc.
Even after regulatory social distancing measures and guidelines are eased or rescinded, it’s highly likely that customers will be hesitant, at best, to intermingle or engage with crowds. As a good business practice, be ready to maintain and promote social distancing and good hygiene measures well after guidelines are in force.

Devise a plan for limiting access.

Develop a plan to limit access to your business to maintain social distancing spacing and gatherings of 10 people or less, or per state or municipal guidelines in force. Like other social distancing measures, consider maintaining practices even after regulatory requirements lapse to enhance your customers’ comfort level.
Where possible, designate separate entrances and exits (i.e. enter in front, exit in back) so customers aren’t passing each other or coming in close contact when entering and leaving.

Start with soft openings and VIP events.

Use VIP special invite events and RSVP limited-attendance soft openings to welcome back customers, experiment with changes, and solicit customer feedback and suggestions.

Use and maximize appointments.

Consider offering before- and after-hours private or semi-private (i.e. one customer per staff member on duty) shopping appointments, and give customers the chance to schedule appointments by telephone or online.

Promote hand-washing and sanitization stations.

Open your restroom and invite and encourage costomers to use the facilities for hand-washing; and/or place hand santitizers at entrances, on counters, and at other strategic locations.

Institute a visible, non-stop wipe-down regimen.

Where possible, wipe-down products prior to handing purchases to your customer or bagging products; and assign round-the-clock wipe-down shifts for doors, counters, display and demo products, etc. to staff, preferably in clear sight of customers.

Take your online presence to a new level.

A heightened online presence will continue to be important throughout all phases of your own COVID-19 recovery effort – and beyond.
Your online presence and convenience-oriented options (i.e. shopping/ordering options, virtual in-store events, etc.) will continue to be important, especially as consumers have quickly adapted, become even more accustomed to shopping online, and have come to enjoy the convenience of new and enhanced delivery and pick-up options.
Looking at how to implement e-commerce? There are many low-cost e-commerce sites readily available including Square, Weebly, Wix, etc. Be sure to check out e-commerce trainings from local Small Business Development Centers and other technical assistance providers.

Offer virtual shopping experiences.

A growing number of retailers have found success hosting online shopping events and experiences during recent quarantine and shelter at home periods. Create or continue these events on a regularly scheduled basis, and look for opportunities to collaborate with other business partners.

Be a personal shopper.

Consider introducing or upscaling personal shopper or other concierge-style services with recommended selections made or pre-packaged prior to the customer’s arrival for a personal appointment or showing. The approach lends a personal touch to the experience and limits the customer’s time in the store.

Rethink your floor plan.

Measures to meet social distancing guidelines and enhance your customers’ comfort level – while in force and beyond – might signal a need to rethink your floor plan to create more open space. Showrooming and other display and merchandising techniques might help accomplish these goals.

Offer and promote contactless payment options.

Contactless payment methods, like ApplePay, Google Pay, Samsung Pay and others, offer another means of limiting contact and enhancing your customers’ comfort level. Where contactless options are not available, merchants should strongly consider waiving the requirement for a signature on credit and debit card transactions.

Monitor and adjust store hours.

An increasing number of work-at-home employees, along with an anticipated increase in the number of workers working new staggered shifts, could translate to a change in shopper traffic patterns. Some types of businesses might benefit from an adjustment in hours to accommodate a possible increase in evening and weekend shopping traffic.

Incorporate service and custom components.

Explore opportunities to add and promote service and custom components (i.e. repair services, customized or personalized products and crafts, private label merchandise and packaging, etc.); and for possible wholesaling and B2B opportunities.

Respond to budget-conscious consumers.

It’s no secret that many pocketbooks and household budgets have been hit hard by the pandemic. Large-ticket retailers, in particular, should consider introducing or expanding accessory lines, complementary lower-ticket products and services to help offset consumers’ lingering financial concerns.

Take care of your employees.

Provide appropriate Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) and training for your employees. Be sure to enact sound employee wellness policies as well, such as requiring a temperature check prior to beginning each work shift.
Invest in a contactless thermometer to administer employee temperature checks.

Assess staffing levels and engage your employees.

Assess staffing requirements, and salary and wage levels for frontline staff; and continuously involve employees in the planning and implementation of reopening and recovery strategies. They can be your best advocates!

Stay in the information loop.

Be alert to state and local updates, and plug-in and work collaboratively with fellow businesses and local business organizations (i.e. Main Street, Chamber of Commerce, etc.) and networking groups.