Customers and staff embrace new shopping norm as Woodie's reopens
It was almost business as usual for staff and customers in Woodie's in Cork's Blackpool Retail Park, as the hardware store and garden centre reopened its doors from 8am today for the first time in eight weeks.
This, however, is a new retail experience for both staff and customers and one that involves social distancing and hand sanitiser. Where queuing is the new way of shopping for customers, wearing face masks and t-shirts reinforcing the social distancing message and managing how many customers are in store is a new way of working for staff.
In the first easing of lockdown measures this week Woodie's is among a range of retailers, mostly focused on hardware, building merchants, garden centres, and mobile phone and IT retailers, to reopen their doors to the public.
For the past few weeks staff at the Woodie's store have been working behind the scenes to replenish stocks and get ready for the May 18 reopening.
Stephen Stubbs, one of the managers at the Blackpool store, said staff have been preparing for a number of weeks: “We’ve been planning to reopen since the day we closed. There has been a lot going on behind the scenes”.
All staff, Stephen said, have been trained and briefed on using hand sanitiser, face masks, and face shields and on public health guidelines to keep Covid-19 at bay.
Stephen said there was a steady flow of customers on Monday morning with queuing time averaging around 15 minutes. “The customers have been fantastic. Most are coming for garden furniture, paint, and plants,” he said.
In terms of advice for customers hoping to stock up on hardware or gardening goods, Stephen said there’s no need to rush as there is plenty of stock available: “The store is well prepared and well set up. This week will be busy but it will settle down”.
Going by the lunchtime queue at the Blackpool store today customer demand was healthy and business was brisk.
“We queued since 6.30am in the morning and people started to come from around 7am,” Mary said.
“The staff were fantastic this morning. They are very professional and it is all very well organised,” Grace added.
Mary, a HSE worker, was investing in some garden furniture in the hope of having a barbecue to celebrate her husband’s significant birthday over the summer.
Grace was buying some furniture to put the final touches to her garden after a lot of hard graft in recent weeks: “I had all of the back garden done over the past few weeks and all I was missing was the table and chairs”.
Meanwhile Donie O’Riordan, from Hill Crest, Blarney Road, was queuing for the garden centre, in his first outing in six weeks.
Donie said staying at home was “tough” as he was used to being out and about but he was glad of the opportunity to go to the garden centre. “I’m looking for some shrubs and hanging baskets. Doing the gardening has kept me busy,” he said.
Also in the lunchtime queue was Alan Murphy from Mayfield, who was laden down with a bucket of paint that he was planning to return.
“I’ve been busy with all of the jobs that haven’t been done for the past two years, such as painting gardening, and fencing,” he explained.
“We bought the paint before the lockdown, that’s around two months ago now. I’m hoping to exchange it for exterior paint for the house,” he added.
