Retail Reopens: "Customers have missed the human experience of shopping"

By Fiona Carter, Sales Consultant Stylist at Selfridges

Going back to retail work after months of being at home has been mixed with feelings of anticipation, trepidation, some concern, but generally optimism. Thankfully, I’d had my first vaccination, and although I was a little worried about getting the tube, it was not enough to stop me travelling. Non-essential retail has endured heavy blows during this pandemic and to be able to open shop doors to the public once again is a relief, and an exciting time. Unlike opening-up after previous lockdowns, this time it really did feel like a new beginning. With an air of enthusiasm, it felt like we are through the worse, helped by the success of the UK’s vaccine role out. Spring is here and so too the new season collections, primed and waiting to be snapped up as well as new brands being launched.

Oxford Street is bouncing back. However, with the recent store closures of TopShop, Debenhams and House of Fraser, the future of the West End and those large retails sites remains uncertain. The benefit for Selfridges though, is that recent figures show there has been a surge in first time visitors.

What is unmistakable is that customers have missed the human experience of shopping and the unique emotional interactions — this is true for our local independent shops, as well as large retailers. In the first few days many customers came in just to say ‘Hello’. This proves no amount of digital photography can replace the face to face, in person experience of speaking to retailers and connecting with their product.

Looking at the shop floor the drive for more sustainable, better fashion is building. Not long ago, brands promoting sustainability were a fringe novelty, now they are the mainstream, and none more so than how it has integrated into the luxury market. Chiahung Su uses vintage Japanese fabric and is sold alongside well known staples like Comme des Garcon and Dries van Noten.  Dries, celebrated for his characteristic embellishment and embroidery are conspicuous by their absence in his Spring/Summer 2021 collection. A harsh reality of how Covid has hit the livelihood of his atelier in Calcutta, where the labour intensive hand craftsmanship of his embroidery and embellishment on a garment handled by so many craftsmen has been impossible to produce safely during the pandemic.

Colville has also launched, and although designed in the UK, is manufactured in Italy. Sadly, it is experiencing familiar post-Brexit delays in delivery and added administrative costs which inevitably will be reflected in us having to pay more for the product.

While their doors were shut, online retail bridged the shortfall and personal shopping continued via virtual appointments, most of which came from overseas customers, mainly from the Chinese. Their appetite for luxury accessories kept the store’s tills ringing during the bleakest weeks of the pandemic, including an order of over £30,000 worth of chocolate from one client for the Chinese New Year. Now the store is open, it is young affluent Chinese students resident in the UK who are buying our luxury goods. This only emphasises the UK luxury market’s heavily weighted reliance on these overseas customers. Now we are no longer able to offer advantageous VAT returns having left the EU will they continue to come to London to shop, when travel restrictions ease.

In the meantime, fuelled by instagram, the unlikely domestic luxury customer is Gen-Z, buying luxury sportswear and designer trainers in ever growing numbers. From the clothing rental platform HURR, to the material science athleisure brand Pangaia’s pop-up shop, there’s plenty of excitement to be found in-store.

Much has changed in retail and we may never go back to how things were before. Mask wearing, for example, is a persistent tussle we encounter with customers who refuse to wear them. It’s a restriction I look forward to being lifted as soon as it is safe, and to see retail flourish once more.