UK furniture stores set to reopen for bank holiday trading

The specialist retailers are both planning to reopen stores after the government changed its guidance to what is classed as ‘essential’ to include homewares retailers, a clarification from its previous definition of ‘home and hardware’ stores.

Furniture Village plans to open all 46 of its branches this Saturday after testing social distancing measures across several of its shops over the past week, while DFS is set to open its stores in Bolton, Leicester and and Milton Keynes on Friday.

Ikea is also believed to be planning a small trial of store openings this weekend, while ScS has said it is aiming to reopen stores “as soon as practically possible”.

Homewares chain Dunelm trialled reopening seven stores earlier this month and has now opened 39 across its 171-strong store estate, as well as allowing shoppers to pick up click-and-collect orders from the majority of its shops since May 12. Matalan has also reopened 15 of its 232-strong UK store estate, which have been selected for reopening due to have large homewares departments and being in standalone locations or retail parks.

Furniture Village has introduced a raft of measures to make its stores safe to operate during the coronavirus pandemic. Every shopper and staff member will have their temperature checked before entering the shop and all shoppers will be asked to sanitise their hands before coming in.

The retailer will also provide disposable pens for shoppers to sign paperwork, and equip staff with protective face shields and perspex screens for the tills.

DFS will also be introducing a raft of safety measures across its reopened stores including conducting daily temperature checks on employees and limiting the number of shoppers allowed in the shop at any one time.