Mall shopping a new experience during pandemic

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 11/05/2020 (2005 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Shopping on Mother’s Day was certainly different in 2020.

At CF Polo Park, a security guard tells you to follow the arrows on the floor. After a couple of steps, it’s evident the mall is not a place with much action these days. The food court and the majority of the stores are closed, but the ones that open are all going about things differently.

Shopping for shoes is just one example. At one store, SoftMoc, an employee at the entrance asks each customer “Are you coming in to browse or do you have an idea as to what you’re looking for?” The store is also telling shoppers to not touch any of the shoes and limiting them to trying on a maximum of two pairs.

At another, Skechers, you better have brought a face mask or you won’t be allowed in the store. At Foot Locker, you can touch the shoes on the wall, but its staff would make you wear a disposable nylon sock before slipping on a shoe.

The only consistent thing was all the stores having hand sanitizer at the front.

Maureen, 35, was at Polo Park on Sunday, but she wasn’t going near any of the shoe stores. She popped into Shoppers Drug Mart to grab some hand soap as the one by her house was all sold out.

“Even if I saw something nice and wanted to go there, it’s tempting, but no,” Maureen said. “It’s not the time.”

Several mall employees said the mall was busy at the beginning of the week when it was given the green light to open again, but once the weekend hit things started to quiet down. Other than a lineup to get into Champs Sports, Polo Park was a ghost town on Sunday. Maureen appreciates all the precautions being taken, but admits she still isn’t comfortable shopping.

“I admire that the security is making people follow the arrows in here, that’s good. However, I still don’t feel secure,” Maureen said.

“I know they’re doing their job and sanitizing everything, but I don’t know. So, when I went to Shoppers, I just grabbed one thing of soap and didn’t touch anything else.”

“I admire that the security is making people follow the arrows in here, that’s good. However, I still don’t feel secure.”–Polo Park shopper

John Graham, of the Retail Council of Canada, said on Sunday that despite the provincial government allowing non-essential retailers to open their doors again with restrictions, after many weeks of being ordered closed, many made the choice of not opening this past Monday or only reopened over the weekend.

“Many have yet to open, as they ensure their reopening requirements are put into place, including calling back staff, securing PPE, and finalizing COVID protocols among other things,” Graham said. “For those that did open, it’s been very slow, as expected.

“Manitobans are very cautious about going out, and we expect it to take months for businesses to slowly rebuild, especially for discretionary products. Stores overall have been focused on cleaning and distancing protocols and any related staff training to ensure the right conditions are in place to rebuild consumer confidence, as shoppers begin again to venture out.”

Prof. John McCallum, of the University of Manitoba’s Asper School of Business, said that confidence which Graham spoke of is key to getting the economy rolling again.

“All governments are trying to nudge up our confidence,” McCallum said. “The biggest way to get our economy going is confidence — confidence for consumers to spend and business confident they can open… a series of steps will be taken with two steps forward, one back, one sideways — all driven by how much people follow the rules and social distance.

“To me we have taken the first step forward and we have no choice to try it to see what else we can open up.”

“To me we have taken the first step forward and we have no choice to try it to see what else we can open up.”–John McCallum

McCallum said the pandemic, which caused businesses to abruptly shut down and slowly begin reopening a week ago is the equivalent of compressing a couple of decades of history in the last century to just a few weeks.

“The stock market crash was 1929, then there was the Depression, and then the (Second World) war and the economy didn’t really recover until th 1950s,” he said.

“This was the biggest shock since that market crash which led to the Depression and this came out of the blue. Everything was fine at the end of January and we were completely shut down by the end of March.

“We don’t know what the new normal is — we’re in the Great Evolution.”

taylor.allen@freepress.mb.ca

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca