WORDS FROM THE STOREFRONT: HOW TO BE A GOOD COVID-19 SHOPPER

WORDS FROM THE STOREFRONT: HOW TO BE A GOOD COVID-19 SHOPPER

The start and finish of this message is a full circle message of truth: The Oiselle Flagship store and staff love a bustling store vibe, welcome your visits, and are here to bring you flystyle and community. 
 
After being closed for nearly four months, the Oiselle Flagship store cautiously but enthusiastically reopened. We put our personal discomfort and nervousness around COVID-19 exposure aside, ready to greet smiling eyes as they browsed the latest flystyle.
 
Instead, we’ve witnessed how the stress and uncertainty has manifested through customers’ compromised social graces and lack of self-awareness and human kindness. We get it: standing in line six feet apart while constantly being asked to sanitize your hands and not touch your face by an exhausted retail employee is frustrating. However, we’re that exhausted retail team and we’re here to tell you we’re doing the best we can. We do and bring our best because we love what we do, we love flystyle, and we’re here to bring it out to you all! We won’t lie: the discouragement is real, as we find ourselves constantly having to remind shoppers (always politely and firmly) to: “hand sanitize; wear your mask & keep it on; maintain your distance, try clothes on at home if possible, we can’t process web returns but we can send it back for you.”  
 
As a company that values community and making a positive impact through the sharing of experiences, we’re sharing ours, with the hope that a reader might give us a high-five for patience in the midst of a pandemic, learning a tip or two, or finding that “oops, that was me. I’ll be better.” With that, we bring you:


“How to be a Good COVID-19 Shopper”

In addition to the visible requirements posted on the door fronts of many businesses, here are some insights to help all of us adapt and modify our behaviors in the retail space.
 
Basic Dos and Don’ts:
 
Mask Etiquette:
  • DO wear your mask at all times when you are entering our space.
  • DON’T do any of the following:
    • Pull your mask down to talk to the associate helping you (as much as we’d love to see your smiling face).
    • Take your mask off to rub, scratch or wipe your nose.
    • Wear your mask below your nose, as a chin strap, or a fun accessory for your hand to hold.
 
Hand Sanitizing:
  • DO sanitize or wash your hands before you enter the space and touch all the goods. For your convenience, our store is set up with a hand sanitizing station as you enter.
  • If a store staff asks you to sanitize, DON’T reply with: “I just sanitized my hands at the last place I was in.” Why? Because by your hand sanitizing in our space, it’s like a fresh start for your hands, and our store—besides, who doesn’t love a fresh start?
 
Dressing Rooms:
  • DO ask for sizing help since most retailers have their dressing rooms closed. Due to limited people allowable in a space, there is more opportunity to interact on sizing questions to fill the gap of not being able to try something on.
  • DON’T proceed to make your own dressing room in a hidden corner of a store, especially when you’ve been asked to try it on at home.
Keep Your Distance:
  • DO respect the six-feet of social distancing space, even when being helped.
  • DON’T proceed to invade someone’s personal space if you can’t hear. We are also getting used to saying, “What, can you repeat that again?” from our checkout line vinyl floor dots in our kindest through-the-mask loud voices possible.
 
Kindness and Understanding are GOLD:
  • DO kindly receive our current restrictions of operations at this time with understanding. They are frustrating and inconvenient for us, too.
  • DON’T continue to argue, get upset and raise your voice in the hopes that you will change our minds. While we appreciate your business, we will not tolerate language and actions that are mean and degrading.
 
Safety First:
  • DO remember that all these rules are put in place to be able to safely serve our community.
  • DON’T think that you are the exception to the rule or have superpowers that exceed others’ immunity. It’s not about “just you,” but the community as a whole. You + Others = Community.
 
First Time Venturing Out?
  • DO your research before venturing out. It’s safe to assume “everything has changed” -- fewer store days and hours of operations, requirements to enter a location, limited or reduced services, etc. Go online, call the store, ask a friend.
  • DON’T blame the store staff for not doing your homework first. Remember the lesson we learned when we “ASSUME.” For Oiselle, our store page on the website has the most updated information, and our store’s phone recording has the most updated hours.
 
We Are All Doing Our Best:
  • DO keep in mind we are ALL doing our best, and trying our hardest to BE our best.
 
So what’s the grand takeaway? Be a kind human and think of others. Seems to be an evergreen value, even more appreciated and needed during a pandemic when we’re at our wits end at some point or another. So let’s be good to each other.
 
The Oiselle Flagship Store Team
— Oiselle Flagship Team
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Comments

Also. if the store marks out a series of one•way routes through aisles or sections, please follow it. They are doing this to manage distancing and proximity between customers. Look up and follow the signs (I am guilt of not paying attention to these requests; I will endeavor to do better)

— Andrea S. Rutledge

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