Next PLC (LON:NXT) has restarted online sales after a two-week hiatus as it put in place safety and hygiene procedures to deal with coronavirus concerns.
The FTSE 100-listed clothing retailer was forced to shutter the warehousing facilities on 26 March and stop website sales as workers felt unsafe as they were not able to practice safe social distancing measures.
After consulting with staff and the USDAW trade union, some “very extensive” safety measures have now been put in place.
Online trading will re-open “in a very limited way from today”, the company said in a statement on Tuesday, with the selection limited to categories such as childrenswear and some small non-clothing items.
“Operations will start with support from colleagues who are willing and able to safely return to work,” Next said.
“The idea is to begin selling in low volumes, so that we only need a small number of colleagues in each warehouse at any one time, helping to ensure rigorous social distancing is complied with.”
To limit volumes, once there have been a certain number of items that can be collected safely each day, the website will then stop taking orders for that day and will convert to 'browse only' until the following morning.
Last month, Next appointed agents to sell its head office and three warehouses to help "secure the cash resources of the business" for the future as it took "all the measures" to protect itself from the coronavirus crisis.
Chief executive Simon Wolfson also said Next could sustain the loss of 25% of annual sales or £1bn, according to a stress-test forecast where the coronavirus lockdown was sustained for 24 weeks, including zero sales for four weeks, with sales beginning to pick up after two months.