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How should retailers manage touch-but-not-buy?

Written by Tom Ryan

Photo: RetailWire

The ability to have customers return merchandise, try on clothes in fitting rooms and even touch merchandise has been clouded by concerns over the transmission of COVID-19. Among the strategies some retailers are using as they start to reopen:
  • Gap’s dressing rooms will be closed. Returns will be quarantined for 24 hours before being placed back on sales racks.
  • Saks Fifth Avenue will keep dressing rooms open, but fewer will be available and they’ll be cleaned after each use. Items tried on or returned are being taken off the sales floor for 48 hours.
  • Target has closed fitting rooms. Returned clothing items are being quarantined for three days before placing them back on the sales floor.
  • Macy's will also open fewer dressing rooms with frequent sanitization and will hold aside returned and fitting room merchandise for 24 hours before bringing it back to the sales floor.
  • At DSW, any shoe returns or shoes that have been tried on will be removed from the sales floor to the back where they will be sprayed with disinfectant and kept off the sales floor for three days.
Beyond apparel and footwear, Macy’s beauty departments will offer “no-touch” consultations and demonstrations and will help customers test products on a piece of paper with a diagram of a face. Customers will be required to use hand sanitizer when trying on jewelry. A challenge, according to Glossy, is that few guidelines have come out from authorities on how product should be handled. Saks is investigating whether to use experts to advise them on how or if apparel needs to be cleaned after it is tried on by a customer, according to the New York Post. Retailers could face lawsuits from sick patrons and workers after reopening, although health officials have said it’s highly unlikely a person can get COVID-19 through apparel or footwear. The sanitization, mask for associates and other steps are also designed to make customers feel comfortable enough to shop in public. Saks plans to take the temperatures of associates daily and potentially communicate those results to shoppers.

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