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Supporting stores with social distancing and sanitising

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Nisa’s independent retailers are taking steps to make their stores safer for shoppers considering challenges faced by the coronavirus crisis.

And they are receiving support to improve their facilities from Nisa’s store development team which has evolved to ensure the necessary help can still be offered to Nisa partners, even under strict social distancing measures.

The Covid-19 pandemic has made some areas of the Nisa support team’s work difficult to carry out with those who’d usually conduct their work visiting partners in their stores, having to become more innovative in the way they provide support to ensure their services are meeting current demands.

Whilst more usual store development projects have stopped for the immediate future, instead the team has been identifying new support mechanisms for retailers.

Now, rather than developing new stores, the format team has been identifying opportunities to create assets that support the fight against the spread of the coronavirus with protective sneeze screen guards, social distancing vinyl signage and sanitiser stations now on the agenda.

Protective sneeze guard screens sourced from external suppliers and made available to partners last month has led to more than 1,350 orders so far by Nisa partners.

The freestanding self-install screens come with double sided sticker pads to attach to the counter to add stability.
Nisa’s store development and fresh food development managers have worked with partners to collate orders, pass information onto suppliers and the screens have been delivered direct to stores.

The Nisa team also designed and created social distancing window signs and floor stickers for partners. More than 600 sticker packs outlining social distancing requirements in stores have now been ordered and despatched to partners for their use.

And the latest addition to the coronavirus armoury is the Nisa branded sanitiser station, which again is ordered through the Nisa team and delivered direct to store. They are available as wall mounted as well as free standing units and have been arriving in stores this week with over 200 dispatched in just a few days.

Cade Jones who runs the Nisa Local Newfield Green in Sheffield said: “We love the new hand sanitiser station. It’s helping our customers and helping our community.”  

Darren May, head of format and development  at Nisa said:

Whilst we’d rather be out supporting partners in their stores in person, that’s not an option right now and so we’re continuing to work in ways which ensures partners still get our support, but in a slightly different way.

We’ve seen some great examples of retailers taking their own steps to protect their staff and shoppers in stores and we know the sneeze guards we’ve been sending out are working well for our partners and the latest sanitiser stations have also been welcomed.