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EDITORIAL Non-essential retailers get the green light to reopen shops within three weeks – subject to Covid safety

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In today’s InternetRetailing newsletter we report as retailers get the green light to reopen their shops by June 15. Doing so will depend on two factors: the Covid-19 infection rate being under control, and individual retailers putting their own safety measures in place.

Retailers looking at how they can go about achieving the second of these are pointed towards new official government guidance. But they can also learn from what other retailers that have already announced their reopening have done, and we’ve rounded up some of the ways retailers from Aldi and B&Q to Ikea are doing that. 

New footfall figures from the last weekend point towards high levels of demand once stores do reopen – but Springboard’s Diane Wehrle warns that this may be shortlived if consumers feel too hard pressed to spend. 

Those who did venture out to the high street in England at the weekend will have been able to go into newly-reopened branches of ScS and from June 1 they’ll also be able to go back to Ikea.

It almost seems that retail is set to get back to some kind of new normal – we’ll wait with interest to see how shoppers respond. As Springboard’s Wehrle warns, they may well be feeling financially uncertain. No doubt they’ll be tempted back with high levels of discounting at first as retailers clear stock that’s stayed unsold as a result of the lockdown. But longer-term retailers will need to get back to profitability – and in order to do that, we may see the way they sell change still more radically. We’ll be reporting as retail continues to change – just as it always does. 

In today’s guest comment, Mirakl CEO Philippe Corrot gives his perspective on how, following the coronavirus pandemic, we can prepare for the next black swan event

Image: Adobe Stock

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