Covid-19 coronavirus: Do you need to give your contact details to retail stores?

A national cosmetics chain is now temperature checking every customer before allowing them inside as confusion swirls over which Covid-19 safety measures are necessary for retail shops.

Elsewhere, Kiwi shoppers must give their names and phone numbers at banks and postal outlets, while the Government also plans to release a "digital diary app" tomorrow to help people log their movements.

Yet - in many other stores - retails customers are free to come and go as they please.

The confusion comes after the Government flip-flopped on retail contact tracing rules, industry lobby Retail NZ said.

Retailers were first told they legally needed to keep contact tracing records, but that requirement has now been dropped.

Aucklander Samantha Caretti - who is both a shopper and retail worker - said she had a customer this week question why she was taking his details.

"He also was saying that I wasn't supposed to do it anymore," she said.

"But in our business, we decided we still wanted to contact trace people - it is for everyone's benefit."

Some shops in Remuera are taking shoppers' details for contact tracing as the nation adjusts to life under Covid-19 alert level 2. Photo / Dean Purcell.

It comes as retail stores and cafes now have their hands full simply trying to bring dollars flowing back into their stores after weeks of lockdown.

Retail NZ chief executive, Greg Harford, said contact tracing had been yet another stress on businesses already overwhelmed by the Government's rapid-pace announcements during the Covid-19 crisis.

Thankfully, the Government recently clarified that retailers did not have to keep customer records for contact tracing, he said.

Instead, they only needed to keep records of any employees or visitors - such as maintenance workers or suppliers - coming onsite, and ensure everyone in store maintained 2m physical distancing where practical.

National cosmetics chain Mecca, meanwhile, has taken Covid-19 safety measures much further, now insisting on temperature checks before allowing customers in store.

Mecca's website stated customers needed to have temperatures below 37.4C to be let in.

It was also restricting the number of people allowed in store and implementing a no-touch service policy.

Chris Wilkinson, managing director of consultants First Retail Group, said Mecca built its businesses on an intimate and high-touch environment.

Its new hands-off safety rules marked a dramatic step back from this, he said.

However, with teenage girls queuing up outside Mecca's Lambton Quay store in Wellington on the weekend, Wilkinson said the outlet could likely afford to implement strong safety rules due to the almost "cult" loyalty of its customers.

Retail shops are making up their own rules for what customers should and shouldn't do. Photo / Dean Purcell.

Businesses more desperate to get customers through the door might not be able to be so careful, he said.

Wilkinson also backed Wellington and Dunedin City Council's moves to use contact tracing app Rippl, saying it would give confidence to the public if one standardised app was used.

Wellington City Council was also offering a three-month Rippl licence to other council controlled organisations as well as sports, cultural and community groups to help them with contact tracing.

Once an organisation registered online they received a unique QR Code, which people could scan with their phones as they entered and left a store.

This would allow them to receive an alert to advise of any possible contact with Covid-19.

So far there have been 552 registrations in Wellington City and more than 25,000 app downloads.

In Auckland's Remuera's shopping district today , the ongoing confusion over contact tracing was obvious.

Coffee lovers and their pooches were returning to the suburb's cafes, while barbershops were overflowing with customers even though the suburb's hipsters appeared to survive lockdown with beards still in immaculately condition.

Yet few hairdressers or cafes appeared to keep contact tracing registers.

On the other hand, banks and the postal shop had staff posted at their front doors and only allowed customers in if they gave their contact information.

Other stores had pen and paper at the front for customers to voluntarily give their names, while most also had signs up about hygiene and social destining.

An old dog slept in the doorway of one luxury real estate company's office as a friendly obstacle against too many customers entering at once.

Caretti said she was originally from hard hit Lombardy in Italy and had friends with parents who had died, while her own sister entered lockdown in February and only just left her home last week.

As a shopper, she thought it important to give our contact details at least for the next few weeks until we know Covid-19 has died down.

"We all go around with loyalty cards or at the supermarket and swipe those details away," she said.

"This is for a good cause."