MIDLAND, Texas — Gov. Abbott's new executive order takes place immediately after his stay at home order expires. This is all in an effort to get the Texas economy up and running again.
Rachel Howard, owner of Fox Den in Midland, believes that this new order will help.
"But I do expect that will help, and I think people are ready to get out and shop and so I do think it’ll help with people being able to come in and look for summer clothes for their kiddos," Howard said.
Even though Abbott issued this executive order, not all businesses that fall into this category of being allowed to open have to open up if they don't feel ready to do so.
Fox Den does plan to open up, but they've added their own rule as well. They will be limiting their hours initially until around mid-May.
"We’re not required where I’m located. We’re not required to be open in certain amount of hours like some developments are in the city so really it’s my choice if we feel comfortable opening back up," Howard said.
While Fox Den seems prepared for summer sales, the fall is more concerning because they don't know how much of their new inventory they will actually get from overseas.
"That’s where you get to see a lot of the impact in terms of what the availability is at the clothing that you purchased in advance for that upcoming season because a lot of our retailers have already reached out to us to let us know we really don’t know how much of your order that you placed that you’re going to get," Howard said.
But the most important aspect of this new executive order for retail business is simply having people back in the stores.
"I think anybody having the ability to have anybody come in is going to be helpful. And the more that people get to get out and shop you know it’s only going to go up from there. It’ll absolutely help being able to be open at 25 percent, 50 percent, etc.," Howard said.
This executive order is phase one of Gov. Abbott's plan to reopen Texas. He's hoping that this will go smoothly and that even though more people will be out, that COVID-19 cases will not spike in Texas and he can then move on to phase 2.
This would include increasing the capacity for businesses that opened during phase one while also opening up more types of businesses in a limited capacity.