With two weeks to go to June 15, gift retailers have been putting their all into their shops to ensure that they are compliant with the Government guidelines when they re-open, with Five Dollar Shake delighting its customers by creating a series of glamorous posters that cover both social distancing and safety messages.
The colourful, eye-catching posters, in keeping with the feel of a gift or card shop, use the greeting card company’s distinctively styled illustrations, with the images available to be downloaded and printed by retailers whether or not they are a Five Dollar Shake customer. Alternatively, the company is offering to print and post the posters direct to retailers.
The inspiration for the initiative came from Matt Genower, who co-owns Five Dollar Shake with his wife Beth. Walking past a shop, he saw a makeshift sign in the window and thought, “our customers need better than that…”
Louise Rolfe, owner of The Present in Barnet said: “it was joyous to see Five Dollar Shake’s beautifully artistic posters. All the others I’d seen were very stark, industrial, factory-like and not at all in keeping with our lovely, pretty gift shop!”
Louise is planning to feature the posters in the window for people to see outside before they enter. “I will limit the amount of people in store to three or four and will have a small table just inside the door with hand sanitiser and the Five Dollar Shake hand sanitiser poster next to it. It seems a gentler way of insisting!”
She continued: “We are lucky that our shop is quite big so we will have some arrows on the floor for people to come in on one side of our front table and out round the other side. We are also going to grid the floor with 2 metre squares with tape and will be dotting the Five Dollar Shake posters around reminding everyone to keep their distance. I will also be featuring the posters around the counter area. It is not only about keeping our distance to protect staff and customers – it’s about giving customers the confidence to come in and feel safe shopping again.”
Also thrilled to be able to put the posters up in store is Savita Marsh, co-owner of Northwood Cards & Gifts. “I had been looking into printing some posters but they were far from beautiful!” admits Savita. “The day we received the lovely email from Matt Genower we realised how emotional we felt, as there will be a ‘new normal’ in retailing for a while I suspect. We have screens, masks and gloves, with a new floor is being laid, making it a fresh start for when we re-open, and now we’re delighted to have these super stylish posters too!”
Shona Notman of Xpressions Gifts & Cards in Shoreham by Sea is another retailer having the Five Dollar Shake posters printed both for her shop windows as well as for display inside the store.
“Shopping will undoubtedly change for a while, and I feel that we need to give our customers confidence to shop in our Independents again. By putting all of these things in place, hopefully our regular customers will return to the high street very soon.”
Top: Social distancing Five Dollar Shake style.
