In normal times, CS Hudson is heavily involved with the brick-and-mortar side of retailing, from construction to facilities maintenance. But with so many stores shuttered due to coronavirus, the company has adapted its mission in ways that address the current crisis.
While the company had focused on specialty retail, CS Hudson already had diversified to include clients such as multi-site properties, banks, restaurants and urgent care facilities. “A lot of those industries are what’s still running, versus specialty retail which has essentially shut down,” said Joe Scaretta, Co-Founder and CEO of CS Hudson in an interview with Retail TouchPoints.
Key offerings now include:
- Coronavirus deep cleaning services;
- Sneeze guard installations, both pre-packaged and custom-designed;
- Pop-up open air COVID-19 testing centers;
- Specialty signage installations supporting wayfinding, social distancing and new one-way aisle directions;
- Board-ups of closed store locations to prevent vandalism; and
- Store reformatting designed to reduce touch at employee-customer interaction points.
CS Hudson also is preparing for the eventual re-opening of malls and shopping centers. “We’re working with partners to come up with ways we can retrofit existing mall kiosks to turn them into sanitation stations,” said Scaretta. “I think these stations are a huge opportunity for malls and landlords/operators. They also may want to set up testing stations outside their malls by partnering with urgent care facilities in their geographic markets.”
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The company can provide the logistical framework for pop-up testing sites. “We’ll get a pop-up tent, a generator from a home improvement or hardware store and some tables and chairs, and then the tent itself would be staffed with testers and testing kits,” said Scaretta. “We’re talking to our urgent care clients about them now.”
Retailers are reformatting their stores to reduce the number and type of interaction points between employees and customers while still keeping the shopping process moving. This is critical for retailers that are mandated to reduce the number of people in their stores at any given time, but want to shorten the lines that form outside the building.
Scaretta added: “I see CS Hudson’s role as pivoting to support essential service businesses, meaning anything that will stay open, as well as retail clients in whatever shape or footprint they will use in the go-forward new normal.”
