As Phase 1 of reopen starts, local retailers must decide: open the doors, or wait?
As Phase 1 of Gov. Roy Cooper’s plan to reopen the state approaches on Friday, we might envision eager store owners across the land flipping “Closed” signs to “Open” at 5 p.m. sharp to welcome throngs of shoppers through their doors.
That’s not exactly what’s going to happen.
Though some local retailers are busy making preparations to safely open by the weekend — Flourish Market in downtown Raleigh, for one, has a very detailed plan in place — others are opting to give the coronavirus curve a bit more time to flatten.
Under the Phase 1 rules, non-essential businesses can open to customers at 5 p.m. Friday, at 50% capacity and with social distancing and strict cleaning rules in place.
Quail Ridge Books, a small business mainstay in Raleigh for more than 35 years, has a different plan. The independent bookseller will continue processing online-only orders through the weekend, and open on Monday for in-store browsing by appointment only.
It’s the same model the store used as they phased into closing down back in March, said general manager Jason Jefferies.
Starting Monday, the North Hills store will allow four shoppers per hour, meet them at the door and send them straight to the restroom to wash their hands. They’ll have baskets throughout the store for shoppers to place items they’ve touched but decided not to purchase, and those will be sanitized by employees before being returned to the shelves.
They’ll start taking reservations by phone on Friday.
“We still want to have a controlled environment,” Jefferies said. “We respect the governor’s decision, but we’re also monitoring what doctors and scientists are saying, and our philosophy all along has been, ‘just because you can do something, doesn’t mean that you necessarily should, or have to.’”
Jefferies said Quail Ridge will stick with the appointment shopping through Phase 1 and then “see how it goes.”
DECO waits for Phase 2
It’s a similar story at DECO Raleigh, a downtown gift shop specializing in locally made and locally branded products.
Owner Pam Blondin said that despite the go-ahead from the state, DECO doesn’t plan to reopen its physical store to customers until at least the beginning of Phase 2, which Cooper predicts could come on May 22, if the state’s metrics on testing and other trends hold.
At that point, DECO will probably ease in with shopping by appointment, Blondin said. Until then, they are offering “virtual shopping” slots that let customers browse through a live video tour and make their purchases (those appointments are available Monday through Wednesday for at least the next two weeks).
“I’m thinking we won’t open our doors in any kind of ‘y’all come on in off the streets’ way until maybe June, and we’ll see how it goes at that point,” Blondin said.
One thing Blondin said she’s worried about is a “bounceback” or spike in cases after reopening starts, and she doesn’t want to pull her employees off of unemployment benefits if she’s not sure she can keep them working.
And based on her conference call with other downtown Raleigh independent retailers on Friday, Blondin said she isn’t alone.
“No one was enthusiastic about opening soon,” Blondin said. “Everyone is being really, really cautious. We don’t want to get sick, and we don’t want our employees to get sick.
“We want to be as low-risk as possible so we’ll probably do the appointment shopping for a while,” she said.
When the eclectic gift shop does open for live bodies to roam around inside, the focus will be on how to keep everyone safe, Blondin said.
Shoppers will be asked to wear masks, and her team has been brainstorming on how to keep items in the store clean after being touched by shoppers. She likes the Quail Ridge basket method for holding items that need to be sanitized, or, she said, “sometimes we can just take things off the floor for 24 hours.”
A reopen plan in place
Emily Sexton has a detailed plan in place to reopen her Raleigh boutique The Flourish Market on Saturday morning.
The store space in Raleigh’s Warehouse district is large, and Sexton said it has never been at 50% capacity even before the pandemic, so that part of Cooper’s order won’t be a problem.
She has cleaning protocols in place, and her staff has already been working throughout the stay-at-home period filling online orders while following “very strict rules.”
As soon as customers enter the store, Sexton will greet them and remind them about social distancing rules. Everyone on her staff will wear face masks, but customers aren’t required to, as long as they obey proper distancing rules. As shoppers leave, cashiers will remind them to not touch their face, to clean their hands and to wash any items purchased items once they get home.
There’s a team meeting Thursday night to review the procedures and they’ll do a practice run on Friday.
“And I will be there every open hour of our business for the next two weeks, seven days a week,” she said. “As the owner, I want to be the person that my team sees and that our customers see to help them feel more safe. … I want them to see me there and know I’m taking this seriously.”
At the same time, Sexton knows that many customers still won’t feel OK about shopping inside stores with groups of people for awhile.
She has a plan for that, too.
On Mondays, Flourish will close to the general public and be open for private one-hour shopping blocks, with a maximum of two shoppers in the store at one time. The private shopping hours are free. And on Tuesdays, her lead stylist will do free virtual styling appointments over Zoom, and customers can pick the items up curbside or have them shipped. People can start making those appointments this Friday morning. (Regular hours will be 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday.)
“I want to help respect everyone’s fears right now and we want to have something for everyone,” Sexton said.
In addition to the focus on safety, Sexton said she has adjusted Flourish’s inventory to reflect the new reality of her customers’ lives.
“No one needs a lot of fancy work wear right now or fancy dresses,” she said. “So when you look at our clothes, you’ll see lots of lounge wear.”
Durham shop owner taking it slow
The best answer Ryan Hurley can give about when his Durham clothing store Vert & Vogue can open up again is, “to be determined.”
Hurley, who started the boutique with his wife, Nadira, in 2008, said the couple just isn’t confident about the timing just yet.
“We don’t feel like we can make a decision at this point, based on what we know,” Hurley said.
“We’re very lucky that we have all our goods online and we’ve been doing curbside and shipping since the crisis began. Hopefully in the coming weeks we can take a step toward opening by doing by appointment visits to the store.”
Hurley said they have been able to keep their full-time employees on at reduced hours with full benefits, but like Blondin, he worries about pulling them away from unemployment benefits before the business is able to sustain them.
Complicating the timeline is the fact that Hurley said businesses are just starting to receive money through the Payroll Protection Program (PPP), in which the Small Business Association will forgive loans if employees are kept on the payroll for eight weeks and the money is used for payroll, rent, mortgage interest or utilities.
“It’s very complicated,” Hurley said. “Even eight weeks from now, it’s not going to be full-tilt again in July, so what’s going to happen after the eight weeks is a concern.”
Hurley said his team has “stayed strong and pivoted and adapted and made us really proud,” which has helped the company build on what it had already established with its online business at vertandvogue.com.
But at the same time, it’s impossible to know what will happen.
“Sales are down significantly in a way that’s tough to imagine them coming back to what they were any time soon,” Hurley said. “We’re trying to take this one week at a time.”
This story was originally published May 6, 2020 at 5:50 PM with the headline "As Phase 1 of reopen starts, local retailers must decide: open the doors, or wait?."
