Shopping boom in partial lockdown?

If you follow the press, you may have come across some articles that say that people are using the time in the partial lockdown to go shopping like crazy. I cannot confirm this phenomenon. At least not in our industry. Streets like Maximilianstrasse in Munich, K?nigsallee in Düsseldorf, Kurfürstendamm in Berlin, Neuer Wall in Hamburg and Goethestrasse in Frankfurt are currently characterized by one thing in particular: emptiness.

So anyone who thought it would do the industry good to remain open in a time when the entire social life has come to a standstill is mistaken. The opposite is the case. We are fighting with all means against the spread of the virus in our stores, working in A and B teams, shortening opening hours, disinfect whenever we can, accepting temporary closures due to possibly occurring illnesses. We motivate the teams, the managers, ourselves every day anew. But as we know, our products are not things you need urgently. In tough times you can easily do without luxury. Especially since the occasions are missing where you can and want to dress up. In the home office, no one cares what you wear, or even whether you are wearing anything at all in a Teams or Zoom Call. You can switch off the camera. 

I miss the relaxed times when we were able to celebrate with our customers and friends on the shop floor and do good business with each other on the side. Today everything weighs so heavily. Just calling the client to see if he's doing well implies that he might be doing badly. But what can you tell a customer who is just as stressed out and severely restricted by the situation? Especially now, everyone in our industry is vying for the same cluster of luxury customers and an overload of calls and information is counterproductive. 

For many reasons it is mandatory to be there for our colleagues in the stores. Anyone who has ever experienced what it is like to have to greet very few customers for days on end knows what I am talking about when I say that this job is currently a very difficult and extremely stressful one. Anyone who has ever worked in the field knows that there is nothing better than serving customers all day long, having good conversations with many different and interesting people and generating excellent sales on the side.

I am sure that we will get back to this point. And until then, we have to persevere, minimise the pressure on our colleagues in the boutiques, continue to develop the quality of our products and bring it to a supernatural level, look after the store, optimize the product range, process the customer file perfectly and be well prepared for the hopefully upcoming shopping boom.

I am looking forward to it.