The retailers swinging their doors open in time for Mother’s Day
Australian retailers are reopening their doors to the public, or extending their trading hours, in time for one of the biggest celebrations of the year – Mother’s Day.
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Australian retailers are gearing up to reopen store doors nationwide, or extend their restricted trading hours in time for Mother’s Day.
A majority of Apple stores have reopened to the public as have Adairs outlets in Queensland. The remainder of Adair’s bricks and mortar retail outlets will be reopened by June 30.
Retailer BIG W has also extended today’s in-store trading until 9pm – an ongoing but once-a-week decision General Manager of Commercial Teresa Rendo said would enable the retailer to enforce better social distancing practices.
It comes just in time for Mother’s Day and follows BIG W outlets operating at reduced hours for more than six weeks.
“The decision to extend those hours enables our customers the flexibility to shop when its convenient for them. It also makes social distancing easier to maintain,” she said.
With an increase in foot traffic the past week already, Ms Rendo said hand sanitising stations and trolley wipes would continue to be made available in stores. Store greeters and security guards managing the one-in-one-out system will also be in place as well as “pick up” and “contactless pick up” options for BIG W customers.
Since lockdown started, Ms Rendo said online sales had surged three times the amount seen last year, with hygiene, home, fitness and toys the biggest shopper categories.
“We’ve almost doubled our home delivery hub in six weeks to ensure we can keep up with home deliveries,” she said.
As of tomorrow, five Myer outlets in Queensland – Chermside, Carindale, North Lakes, Townsville and Toowoomba – will resume trading as well after all stores closed on March 29 and 10,000 were stood down without pay due to the coronavirus outbreak.
A further two Myer outlets in New South Wales – Bankstown and Liverpool – will open on Saturday.
Other retailers to open this week include Kathmandu and Ripcurl chains across Queensland and NSW.
They have opened on trial basis, with the remainder of the country to follow shortly while adhering to strict hygiene rules.
Their stores in Brazil, Europe, Japan, North America and New Zealand will, however, remain shut.
Cotton On has also started to reopen selected stores across the Cotton On Group as well as fashion retailer Glassons – at Garden City and Robina (Qld), Erina, Castle Towers, Warringah, Bondi and Eastgardens (NSW) and Chapel Street (Victoria).
All Rebel stores are open across the nation operating from 10am to 5pm Monday to Sunday.
Selected Athlete’s Foot stores are now open as well, along with a majority of all EB Games stores – including those in Victoria.
David Jones department stores remain open, except for its Barangaroo store in Sydney.
Retail outlets owned by Premier Investments – including Smiggle, Peter Alexander, Portmans and Just Jeans – will, however, remain closed until May 11.
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Online sales across the country have skyrocketed since the start of Australia’s lockdown, even though there were significant falls in sales across discretionary categories on the brink of business closures in March.
While supermarket sales were up 23 per cent for the month, Australian Retailers Association CEO Paul Zahra said clothing, footwear and personal accessories recorded a 22.6 per cent drop.
Mr Zahra said he expected online shopping habits to remain permanent “as retailers offer new options such as kerb-side pick-up and retail-to-go options”.
“It’s been unquestionably tough for retailers, and the true recovery picture won’t start to emerge until physical stores reopen more fully in the coming weeks,” he said.
“We are likely to see a phased reopening – retailers have different considerations some will open key stores and wait to open others.
“Some have cafes attached and will need to delay that area opening. Others are still negotiating with landlords.”
NEW DATA REVEALS GROWTH IN RETAIL TRADE FIGURES
Mr Zahra said the March retail trade figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics on Wednesday, reported a year-on-year growth of 10.1 per cent, were consistent with expectations of strong pre-lockdown specific category growth, while most retailers shut their doors.
The figures confirm stronger expenditure year-on-year across food (+27.2 per cent), liquor (+33.9 per cent) and pharmacy (+29.4 per cent) categories, and a sales boost in household goods (+10.3 per cent) as Australians adapted to restrictions and stocked up on additional items for lockdown.