There was only one question being asked by the traders in and around London’s Camden market last week preparing for reopening on Monday morning after months under enforced coronavirus lockdown: when will the shoppers return?
Non-essential retailers, such as clothes stores, are allowed to reopen in England for the first time since late March if they can prove to be “Covid-secure”. But coronavirus has presented a particularly harsh test for this area of north London, never the most hygienic, which is as well known for its crowds as its sometimes bawdy attractions.
“We don’t know how many people will open on Monday or how many shoppers will come out,” said Lars Jorgensen, who has run food stalls in the market for 30 years.
He reopened his pancake stand two weeks ago after the government lifted the restrictions on outdoor markets, and said turnover was a quarter that of a typical week in June.
“I was quite happy last week as I managed to cover expenses. I have been here many years and up and down many times but never crashed like this.”
John Alston, managing director at nearby vintage clothing retailer Collectif, said he has no idea of what to expect in terms of demand when he reopens on Monday.
But he had to start somewhere having had a successful year interrupted by the pandemic which lost him £1m in expected turnover in less than two months across his four retail and wholesale operations.
Mr Alston has tried to make a virtue of the coronavirus restrictions by turning his shop in Camden into a showroom and asking customers to use their smartphones to pay for clothes in-store, using a new website. He will not allow anyone to try on clothes on display nor take them away.
Other retailers are preparing for Monday with similar efforts to ensure that custom numbers are restricted, and products remain sanitary.
Camden has long had a reputation as a sprawling, busy jumble of outlets that sit just on the northern edge of central London; a collision of food joints, late night bars and shops famed for selling knock-off branded goods and T-shirts with slogans ranging from the vulgar to the openly abusive.
In recent years, local property owners, notably Labtech, which controls the market, have refashioned and redeveloped the area away from some of its less salubrious, counterculture roots.
Labtech has made extensive preparations for the reopening of the rest of the market: two metre distances are mapped out on the floors, inside and out, with one way systems that will lead customers around the more narrow areas. Some of the inside stalls have moved to less crowded parts.
Security guards already count customers in and out of the outdoor spaces to keep within social distancing guidelines, although this has yet to become an issue given the low footfall. Still, numbers came close last weekend when the sunshine attracted people to the market again, according to Maggie Milosavljevic, LabTech’s commercial director.
She said that four-fifths of street food traders have already reopened, and about 85 per cent of outdoor market stalls. “It’s been a slow start but we have seen the potential growth. We know that the majority of visitors here are tourists — with the current restrictions, it has had an impact, but we have seen an increase in local customers.”
She expects about three quarters of non-essential shops to open this week. “It will take time but things will be back to normal eventually.”
At its heart — as much physically as metaphorically — is the indoor market: a rabbit warren of small stalls and cubby holes, mostly independent, small businesses that have found it especially hard to cope in the lockdown.
Labtech has waived rent during the pandemic and traders are under no illusions that this move has saved them from collapse. When asked about business, one hat seller, known in the market only as Paco, said: “You can’t ask yet. I don’t pay rent. I am happy enough.”
But it is Camden’s reliance on tourists — traders estimate they account for 80 per cent of business — that causes concern, given the UK’s strict new quarantine rules.
“No day trippers, no overseas visitors and virtually no office workers,” said Simon Pitkeathley, who runs the local business improvement district, adding that footfall is at about a quarter of normal levels. “June 15 is not bonanza day for many retailers around here. Some won’t open at all.”
On a rainy Thursday morning last week, the high street close to the market was near deserted. One shop that sold tourist wares was already being cleared out by workers. Next door, the shop owner said he would not be opening on Monday.
Velji Gohil, who has run a leather shop on the high street since the 1960s, when he was making boots for George Harrison, Eric Clapton and Pink Floyd, said he would never fully reopen again.
Coronavirus was a catalyst for the move, alongside underlying health issues. “I’ve decided to call it a day,” he said, adding that there was little sign of the return of customers last week at his end of the high street. “It’s tourists that come normally.”
Traders are also focusing now on attracting local customers, who have in the past been deterred by the crowds.
Away from the market, Camden’s main high street was already busier with locals, now used to queueing to pick up essential goods from shops, such as supermarkets, which never closed.
While some stores were still making their preparations last week, others were ready to go. Vodafone’s store will reopen on Monday with no products on show. Instead, blank red boxes will take their place, with popular stock held in the back room.
“There is nothing on display you can touch,” said Jon Shaw, head of UK consumer sales, who added that about three quarters of Vodafone’s shops would open from Monday with protective measures in place for staff and customers such as perspex screens.
“Concierges” will restrict customers numbers to one per employee, with two-metre distances marked out on the floor and hand sanitisers on the doors. “We will see next week how many customers choose to come travel back in,” he said.
This is the immediate concern for all retailers — from the national chains on the high street to the family-owned stalls in the market. Some of those working off thin margins at the sharp end of the retail market will need to decide whether it is worth opening for now — and for others, even more badly hit by the pandemic, whether they will ever open again.