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CEO of DIY chain Woodies has recounted how the company had to compost potted plants worth 150,000 euros when its stores closed seven weeks ago.
Declan Ronayne told the RTÉ radio show Ryan Tubridy that he was nervous and excited about the reopening next Monday and acknowledged that shopping is no longer a hobby and will be difficult for customers.
People are nervous about security and Woodies has “a firm determination to keep everyone as safe as we can,” he said.
Ronayne said the recent closure was the longest Woodies had been closed.
Tails
“Customers should be aware of the fact that our 1,400 people have not been working for seven weeks and are a little nervous about this new world when we return.
“Even before we closed we obviously had queues outside the stores, we only let a limited number of people in. I managed one or two of those queues, in our Bray store and our Cork store, just to talk to customers and what The single guys or couples came up again and again just saying ‘thank God you’re open because I’d be going crazy’ and I said to people in our own business: we’re not in DIY or gardening, we’re in the business of mental health because people want to do things, keep busy, keep their heads together while we all work together to get through this. “
Online
For the past seven weeks, Woodies has continued its online service, which previously had been two percent of businesses.
“After a week, we said we’ll be online again, we opened the website entirely. We’re not big online, Black Friday would be busy enough, we opened at 12 o’clock one day and at midnight that night we had three black fridays, the next day we had five black fridays.
Ronayne said the company was well aware that customers will want to shop differently from now on.
“Our main focus when we reopen on Monday will be managing the queues of people. I will be in Bray first thing on Monday, we have already been in contact with the Gardai, we will have a one-way system in the Parking and departure.
“As we calm down, we see that clicking and picking and stopping picking is just a normal part of our business for people who don’t want to go into the store.”
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