What does local stand for?
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected every local business — the ones owned and operated by your friends and neighbours. There are thousands of stories about the impact of the pandemic on business, here is one:
A commentary by a co-owner of All Victoria Vacuums.
Ithink local businesses often have the most knowledge and best service. The staff members have a vested interest, both in the community and in the business. After all, when the big national chains close their doors and leave the community, it’s the little local guys that take up the slack.
COVID-19 has left many local businesses on the edge. Small business has always had to do more with less. There is no head office to help bridge the hard times.
Retail businesses do not have the option to download Zoom or Skype and work from home. Our staff must risk their health every day, come in to work and help the public.
So, here are the tangible, measurable results.
Since the middle of March, our business has dropped about 35 per cent. While this is devastating to us, we are the fortunate ones. We still have 65 per cent of our business and we have been able to keep most of our staff. To do so, we have rolled back salaries. Sadly, we did lay off one part-time employee.
It has been devastating for the two local businesses co-located with our store, which have been completely shut down.
Emerald Day Spa, named best day spa in Victoria, and Ken the Barber have both temporarily closed their doors. Emerald Day Spa owner Tanya Higgins is uncertain what the future will hold. We are deeply concerned about the seven staff who are temporarily out of work. Being temporarily closed means no revenue is coming in — but that doesn’t stop bills from coming in.
We are praying that, once this has been solved, they will both be able to reopen, resume their operations and bring back staff. We know, though, that recovery from this will take a long time.
The hidden impacts of the current situation are the effects of our cutbacks on other local businesses. To stay afloat, we needed to cut down our expenses. We’ve had to rein in our expenditures by purchasing only small amounts of product and cut our advertising costs, to mention just a few.
Every day, I wonder if this will be the last day we can operate. If one of our employees gets sick with COVID-19, we may have to make significant changes in order to isolate the remaining staff. If that happens, how will we pay our bills?
We have financial obligations to pay the rent, utilities and other monthly costs. More importantly, we need to take care of our staff so that they can keep food on their tables and a roof over their heads.
We’ve seen the brilliance of small-business entrepreneurs emerge as new ways to do business have been invented, seemingly overnight. They did this because they had to. Plexiglass partitions have sprung up at checkouts. We needed to figure out how to keep serving our customers in a way that we all can stay safe. I encourage you to support these efforts with your patronage.
In our store, the front-door handle has never been so clean. I think that by the end of this, we will have worn it out from so many cleanings.
That goes for the credit-card machine and front counter as well. Phone orders can be prepaid and picked up or delivered, as can vacuum repairs.
We thank the community for continued support and hope you stay healthy. Our staff are on the front lines, finding creative ways to serve our customers and yet respect the social distancing that will ultimately keep us all safe and help us get through these difficult times.
As Dr. Bonnie Henry says: “This isn’t for ever, it’s just for now.” Although I think that “now” might last for a long time.