The big shopping centres of Canberra have started to buzz.
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They expected the reopening to be next Friday but it was brought forward by a week when the ACT hit its 80 per cent fully-vaccinated target early.
The change prompted a burst of activity to get the shelves ready for an influx of customers deprived of face-to-face retail therapy for nine weeks.
More QR codes have been added outside to ease bottle-necks at the entrance. Chain fencing has been erected to corral customers and keep them at safe, infection-free distances from each other.
Some of the bigger stores - like IKEA and Big W in Majura Park - reckoned they had so much floor space that everybody would fit in and still be able to keep to the one-person-per-four-square-metres rule.
Big W, for example, was big enough to get 850 people in and keep within the regulations. That's more people than would have been in the store at any one time before the lockdown.
The ACT government, unlike the NSW government, has not mandated proof of double vaccination as a condition of entry.
But across the brands, you can't doubt the enthusiasm. "Delighted" and "excited" were the words that sprang from the lips of managers from Big W, David Jones, Officeworks, Bunnings and the Canberra Centre.
"We're super excited to welcome everybody back into the store," said Paul Eady, the manager in charge of IKEA in Majura Park.
"We can't wait for everyone to bring life back into the IKEA store in Canberra."
"We have additional cleaning to make sure it's safe for our customers and our co-workers. We have QR codes placed outside the building so everyone can check in safely and shop."
He said the last nine weeks had been a challenge, with staff working from home, saying: "The store has been very much asleep over the last nine weeks."
Two weeks ago, IKEA was allowed to do click-and-deliver, with slightly more staff on site.
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Big W redeployed its 200 Canberra staff to the Woolworths supermarkets which have continued to operate across the ACT as essential food and grocery providers.
At the Majura Park outlet on Thursday, staff were pleased to be back in the usual business after it closed on August 13.
On October 1, Big W was allowed to do click-and-collect, with five staff allowed into the Majura Park operation. Those five people serviced 150 orders a day.
Throughout the lockdown, the Canberra Centre has been open because Woolworths and Aldi have been open, but most of the other stores there were closed, so the long malls were sad and mostly empty.
But on Thursday, the centre's manager Gary Stewart said he was "thrilled" at the prospect of so many stores opening. At the centre, they were "brimming with positivity".
Bunnings was encouraging customers to use a map on a downloaded app so they could get to the product they wanted quickly.
The faster people get in and out, the more people who get served - and the shorter the queues outside will be. Leisurely browsing seemed unlikely.
All the store managers spoken to by The Canberra Times reckoned the first few days would be busy but systems were in place to cope and keep customers within the distancing rules. Masks would be obligatory.
But when Queanbeyan opened a week ago, stores were packed. Car parks were full and a queue 50 metres long snaked through the aisles of Kmart to the check-out.
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