The coronavirus pandemic has presented new challenges for retail shops, restaurants, and other businesses that have customers physically come in. The coronavirus pandemic has disrupted countless businesses across the country, and next month the SBA loans program (which has helped many companies stay on life support) will stop accepting applications.
Now, businesses across the country are looking to reopen safely. While wearing a mask greatly reduces the transmission of coronavirus, consumer-facing businesses can’t always rely on customers to properly wear them. Employees can be trained on how to wear masks and follow industry best practices as recommended by bodies like the CDC, but owners of stores and restaurants have little time or capacity to keep customers from spreading this potentially lethal virus to employees or other customers.
That is why semi-permanent Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) is key. One of the most powerful options for business owners is plexiglass — or sheet acrylic — which provides a reusable, semi-permanent barrier that can help prevent the spread of COVID-19. This plastic that can easily and quickly be cleaned, is clear so that people on either side can easily see each other, and is economical and sturdy. Gavrieli Plastics, an industry leader in plastics and metals started producing made to order acrylic shields that come in many sizes, colors and thickness to meet the needs businesses looking to stop the spread of COVID-19.
Where can business owners use plexiglass?
- Cash registers, counters, and other points of contact
PPEs are needed for any point-of-contact between customers and employees to prevent the spread of coronavirus. Acrylic is easy to cut so that customers can still pay for purchases and employees can handle products to scan barcodes or package them. Drugstores that require pharmacists to hand prescription medication to specific individuals began installing these barriers at the beginning of the pandemic, with grocery stores soon to follow.
As more businesses reopen, providing workers with masks is a partial solution. At businesses like nail salons, acrylic can be cut or lifted so that that customers can have get manicures while preventing the spread of the respiratory droplets that are the primary way the virus is spread.
- Product displays
Any first-year year business major can tell you that customers are more likely to buy a product once they see it, and especially after they touch it. However, the CDC cautions that COVID-19 can be spread by indirect contact with surfaces that an infected person has sneezed on or touched without washing their hands first. While normally best business practices include offering some sort of way for customers to interact with a product, that is highly inadvisable until the pandemic is over.
Displaying products behind acrylic can also help increase sales of units with a higher profit margin. Putting those products in prominent places with attractive lighting and signage is incredibly effective in encouraging shoppers to buy them and can also give the illusion that the product is more desirable — so desirable that you have to protect it. It’s a win-win: protecting customers from COVID-19 and encouraging sales that help your business thrive.
- Barriers between desks
The chance of contracting coronavirus from a sick person increases the longer a healthy person is near a healthy person. While many workers have completely transitioned to working from home, some still require coming into the office to use their desks to access secure information, specialized equipment, or meet face-to-face with customers for sensitive issues. Gavrieli Plastics offers acrylic shields custom to your needs, so you can stay safe while tending to your business needs.
These businesses have figured out that plexiglass is one of the best ways to ensure that employees working at those desks don’t transmit COVID-19 to each other. Acrylic rarely needs to be cut to secure barriers between desks. They overlap with the tops of cubicles to maximize protection or create cubicles that still let in light and let people see each other’s faces in spaces with open-office floor plans.
- Restaurant tables
While cities including Los Angeles have introduced dining “al fresco” to encourage people to eat at restaurants outdoors, where increased air flow makes the spread of the virus less likely, having several customers sit down at a table for the hour that a diner will take at a casual restaurant, or the two hours that it takes to turn over a table at a fine dining establishment. The tight margins of the food industry often rely on in-person dining, which take-out can’t match for restaurants set up for dining experiences.
Large acrylic sheets are becoming standard in many cities across the country so that diners — who can’t wear masks while eating or drinking — can still enjoy eating at their favorite restaurants without worrying about contracting COVID-19. Restaurant owners successfully implementing this change advise setting up barriers with sturdy bases and ensuring that there is sufficient room for patrons to get in, out, and around chairs and tables without the danger of knocking over a plexiglass shield.
- Waiting areas
While the risk of contracting COVID-19 is relatively low when people pick up food, medicine, clothes, or other products, sometimes customers have a short wait to get their product. Many businesses — from pharmacies and restaurants to bookstores and hobby shops — simply ask their clients to wait in their cars until they can pick up their orders. But this technology can be expensive or unwieldy to implement depending on how orders are placed and processed.
Some places simply mark spots that are six feet apart for waiting customers, but erecting plexiglass barriers is remarkably more effective in ensuring that customers cannot spread coronavirus to each other. This can also allow for business owners to keep seating for customers, though sanitizing wipes to clean seats between use are also a must. Adding barriers between waiting areas is also incredibly helpful for businesses that have limited space, if it simply isn’t feasible to keep people a full six feet apart while waiting to pick up an order.
Making physical changes to your business can seem daunting, but plexiglass can help business owners get back on track to reopen safely and protect employees and customers alike. This common plastic is an effective PPE that won’t break the bank and will offer customers peace of mind while protecting employees. For more information about ordering acrylic shields and plexiglass for your business, such as made to order protective shields, see www.Gavrieli.com/acrylicshield.
from Feedster https://www.feedster.com/business-operations/how-to-prevent-the-spread-of-covid-19-with-gavrieli-plastics-protective-acrylic-shields/
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