Next which has relaunched its website was forced to stop taking orders as demand exceeded capacity within hours of opening. It recommenced online trading on Tuesday with a limited offering of children’s clothes and homewares, with plans to extend with further ranges. However, demand was so great that the site is now turned to browse only mode until capacity is freed up.
A spokesperson 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 achieve these limited volumes, Next will only allow customers to order the number of items that it believes can be safely picked on any given day.”
The business usually has 7000 people working across its eight distribution centres and 3000 of them have put themselves forward to return to work, with all needing to go through new safety training. The company added that the training would take time to deliver and only those who have undertaken it can commence work, which meant that order capacity would gradually increase as more of its people completed the training.
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