Coronavirus impact on the piano shop

At the moment we feel that we are able to continue with online piano sales. Here is why:

  • We closed our Manchester and London showrooms in March. We are not accepting any visitors
  • The Government say that companies can continue with online sales
  • Mark & Julie Goodwin have been working from home since early March.
  • We are a TINY company. We do not have a busy warehouse. If we make a sale during this crisis it will mean that 1 single technician will travel by car and enter our empty warehouse alone, checking that the piano is ready to go out again, tuning it and then leaving. He won’t see another soul. A few days later 2 piano movers would come to collect the piano and take it directly to the customer’s house. This is in stark contrast to the large factories that are still open all across the UK every day with 1000+ workers in close proximity to each other all day.
  • Making music is essential to many people
  • The piano movers are operating on a voluntary basis. The owner of the company has made it very clear to his staff that they are free to choose to stay home. The piano movers will cease trading if any member of their team shows any symptoms of coronavirus.
  • Before delivery, the piano movers will shrink-wrap the pian in our warehouse and leave it shrink-wrapped until the final moments before leaving the customer’s house.
  • During the delivery, our movers will ask the customer to open the front door and leave a piece of paper on the floor showing where the piano should be placed and then the customer should retreat into a separate room until the movers have left again. At no point will the movers touch the door handles or walls. They will be wearing gloves and masks when available and doing regular washing. Each individual piano mover has their own thermometer.

So you can see that we are a tiny operation with minimal human contact. We just have 1 person working alone for each sale that happens during this period. Then there are 2 piano movers working together on deliveries. The risk of infection must be amongst the lowest of any online sales operation.

What do you think? Let’s talk about it. mgpianos@gmail.com
Thanks
Mark and Julie Goodwin