• 12/06/2022
• By wizewebsite
• 613 Views

Shops opened. Only a man could have invented the ban on trying on clothes, it was said in clothing stores<

Hand disinfection, possibly plastic gloves at the entrance, happy sellers. It was a relatively successful restart for many stores. Only in the case of clothes, saleswomen shake their heads in incomprehension because of the ban on trying on, which discourages practically all customers. Many in front of and behind the counter do not understand the conditions that accompany the opening of stores up to 2.5 thousand square meters on Monday.

“What's so stupid if I can't try this blouse on? I'll come another time," shakes her head at the Bella Design boutique in Pilsen. The lady is clear: "It is nice that the state allowed shops to open after two months, but the conditions under which shopping can be done from Monday had to be devised by a man. A woman wouldn't think of such nonsense.'

Even the saleswoman agrees. "Choosing clothes and not trying them on is nonsense. Even though we offer the option to return or exchange goods, when the customer finds out at home that it doesn't fit, no one uses it," confided the Italian fashion saleswoman on Monday morning.

"One customer came within three hours of opening. When she found out she couldn't try, she left," echoes the saleswoman of the Mauro women's clothing and accessories store near Pilsen's main square.

End of fasting, up for shopping

It is almost noon, most of the shops, or those that could, opened at nine. Sellers of shoes, clothes, books, souvenirs and many others are trying to attract customers again after almost two months of fasting.

In Pilsen, and apparently in other cities as well, it seems in some places that the situation before the declaration of the state of emergency is returning. Again, there is no place to park in the city center, there are fewer people on the streets, but citizens with "muzzles", as one of the homeless said in reference to the masks, roam the streets and examine what they have lost during the long weeks of closed shops.

The crowd was avoided on the first day and the largest store of the outdoor company Hannah on Pilsen's Americká Street. One of the largest manufacturers and sellers of outdoor clothing and equipment has its headquarters here. And also on five floors on an area of ​​900 meters the largest store of the Rock Point chain. Monday morning here was marked by the overpowering of salespeople over customers.

"The spring months together with the winter are the two peaks of sales. That's what we've lost now. What people needed urgently, they bought through e-shops. And quite a few people will probably postpone this consumption completely this year," lamented Tomáš Šebesta, marketing director of the company Outdoor Concept, which covers the Hannah company and the Rock Point stores. Even here, the clothes could not be sold due to the ban on trying them on. More like shoes, backpacks, sports equipment.

Unlike clothes, choosing shoes was not a problem. No one minds trying on shoes exclusively with their feet in socks. "That's normal, and the customers, of whom there were not a few today, accept it just fine," reminds the manager of a women's shoe store in the city center.

Libraries will wait a week

In short - whoever could, opened. But it doesn't apply everywhere. The libraries, in Pilsen the State scientific library and the municipal library for adults, will wait until next Monday. "There is a lot of work here. We are also preparing to disinfect all the books that people return to us," reports the lady in the still closed reception of the scientific library.

Martin Dominik, the manager of a bookstore on Pilsen's náměstí Republiky, has a happier face. The first day after the forced closure showed that people did not forget the books. "At first it seemed absurd that customers wouldn't be able to pick up books at all. But in the end, they can also browse after they have first disinfected their hands," explains Dominik in the office at the end of the two-story store, where a single customer is browsing the shelves. "In the first three hours, however, around thirty people arrived. Although most came just to look at the news, few bought anything, but we are still happy about it," adds the young bookseller.