Hoe overbruggen retailers de 'social distance'? · Kega

Hygiene: here to stay!
Much more attention will have to be paid to hygiene: now and in the future. Not only the government is currently asking that, but organizations such as WHO are warning against the arrival of more such epidemics if our society does not change. How do you deal with this practically as a retailer? And what does the customer expect?

In many shops you will see disinfectant cleaning products (for shopping baskets and carts) and hand gel at the entrance. Where at the beginning of the crisis, for example, cleaning of shopping carts in supermarkets was done by staff, you now increasingly see that it is offered on the basis of self-service.

It does not yet seem that the entrepreneur sees this as a permanent solution. A simple solution could be: a cleaning point at the entrance of the store, as you see at the petrol stations at the pump (the plastic gloves and paper towels).

In Fashion one has to deal with another aspect of hygiene; here you see that the customer is now hesitant to try on clothes. There are fashion stores, such as Purdey, that think along with the customer and have placed a steam appliance in the fitting rooms. For example, all clothing that is appropriate is hung on a clothes rack by the customer and visibly steamed by an employee before it is hung back on the rack. Purdey's customers express their appreciation for the serious approach to the current Corona situation and are relieved that they can shop safely in the ambience of the store they are so familiar with.

And so Hunkemöller not only provides its employees with the tools to be able to offer this service remotely ('Find your HKM size' POS and tape measure at the door of the fitting room), but also demonstrates in an extensive instruction video how the employee can offer the 'world class service'. And it is obvious that you can easily access such a video via an employee app. This way they can view it when and where they want it.

Digital door policy
It is clear to everyone that we are not yet rid of the "1.5 meters", even if the measures are relaxed. The solution to limit shopping carts or baskets is a simple solution for a number of industries, but is not sufficient in, for example, fashion. We improvise here by providing shoe spoons, clothes hangers or customer numbers, but this does not feel like a permanent solution. Moreover, how do you avoid the annoyance of waiting your turn? In this way, we ensure that physical shopping becomes even less 'fun shopping'.

Why don't we give the old-fashioned customer counter a new, digital look? Register the entrance and exit of the store with sensors and tell the customer on digital screens at the entrance whether he / she can enter. Aldi Suisse already has such a digital door policy in 110 Swiss branches and Aldi Süd will equip half of its 1930 German branches with such a system.

It is even better if you make this data available to the employee and the website. Direct the employee, by signaling the manager when the customer visit has reached 90% of the maximum. From a service point of view it may be desirable to place an employee at the entrance.