San Fernando's High Street stores prep for reopening

While retail stores on High Street, San Fernando, are preparing to reopen on Monday, they are doing so with cautious optimism.

When Newsday visited Shoeaholics’ High Street branch on Friday, Alexsiann Barton and Kim St Clair were busy sanitising the store’s surfaces and stocking shelves.

Barton told Newsday, “I feel good that we’ll be able to get some sales. Remember, it was more than three months we were at home without a salary.”

But Barton is managing her expectations and isn’t expecting a flurry of customers on Monday. She thinks business will start off slow, but is hopeful that it will pick up as the weeks go by.

At Glam Trend, Leah Gopaul is excited to start working again.

“I’m hoping there’s a good turnout.

“People have been home for a while and a lot of shopping wasn’t done. So I’m hoping people come out to shop from Monday,” Gopaul told Newsday.

Kim Samlal of Destiny Print Shop, RRM Plaza, High Street, said while there were financial hardships in the past few months, her store’s landlord was accommodating, which helped save her business.

“Our landlord was very lenient in terms of working with the (plaza’s) tenants. So we were fortunate enough to know that our business was secure,” said Samlal.

The shop does customised printing on items like clothing, jewellery and kitchen utensils.

Samlal was doing final preparations for the store’s reopening when Newsday visited on Friday. But she explained that because of the store’s printing machinery, she had to visit it often during its closure to maintain the printing tools.

“We usually came in once a week because most of our equipment needed servicing and weekly calibrating.”

Understanding that covid19 has affected people’s ability to spend, Samlal said the store has worked on a line of services at lower prices which it will start offering to customers from Monday.

“Most of our items are usually over $100. But now because of covid, we’re trying to offer things at a lower cost so people can still get things customised and it still be special.

“We are not out to become millionaires overnight. We are here to ride out the storm, just the way the rest of the economy is doing as well.”

Samlal said she has placed the turnout of customers on Monday in God’s hands and it should be fine by his grace.

With TT detecting its first two cases of the delta variant on Wednesday, Samlal said her store will be strictly enforcing all covid19 prevention measures.

The store’s employees have already been vaccinated, and it proudly displays a sticker on its window to notify customers of that fact.

Though the store is physically reopening, Samlal added that there are a range of online options it offers which it will continue to encourage customers to use.

“Most of the times, we’ll be trying to get people to do everything online, So ordering will be online and getting information will be via WhatsApp. We’re trying to encourage less physical interactions.”

Though it hasn’t even reopened as yet, Fabric Land’s manager Marjorie Cross worries about another closure of the retail sector if the delta variant goes unchecked.

Cross told Newsday, “Hearing about this delta, though I’m vaccinated, you never know what can happen. I trust in God, but I’m very concerned about it because it’s deadly.

When Newsday visited, Cross said workers were updating the computer systems and making final touches around the store.

Despite her concerns, she is glad the entire retail sector is finally being reopened.

“I am very happy (we’re opening). I don’t know if we’ll get a good turnout, but I’m hoping to God.”

Cross told Newsday the store already has wholesale orders from a substantial number of merchants.