NAJ Issues preliminary guidance for Jewellery Retailers

The guidance which is presented as ‘non-exhaustive’ is the first of a number of versions the trade body will be making over the coming weeks. Broken down into 4 key areas of start safe, store safe, task safe and home safe, the Association stipulates that the ‘safety and wellbeing of all staff and customers is number one priority, and therefore it is important that virus control restrictions continue to limit transmission’.

Speaking about the guidance, NAJ Chair Harriet Kelsall said,

“This preliminary guidance aims to help NAJ members and supporters with a list of things to think about when deciding how to go along with government advice as well as considerations for the reopening of their Jewellery stores. This is an agile document and so we will keep changing it as more information and ideas come along. We will be updating the document over the next fortnight as we receive further feedback from members and HM Government updates (released daily).”

Much of the guidance has been developed from ‘essential’ retailers, many of whom have been in operation throughout the Coronavirus pandemic. However, there is also a lot of industry-specific advice: cleaning jewellery, trying on jewellery and security and other considerations are presented.

The NAJ hosted a survey to understand the most common questions amongst it’s membership as well as understand the current status of businesses and the likely intentions in the event of a lockdown being lifted. 85% of the retailers who completed the survey are closed until further notice. However when the lockdown is lifted, 54% of retailers were planning to open with skeleton staff, 21% of retailers were planning to open back to full capacity and 12% were waiting to see what happens.

Download guidance

Further revisions to the guidance are expected later this week and will be presented on the Jeweller Support Network Page, along with other trade-wide resources available during lockdown.