It’s not all doom and gloom: the small firms doing better now than before the lockdown
KEEPING a business going in lockdown is hard enough, but what if you are stranded thousands of miles away, forced to shut down or unsure whether you can get your product to customers?
Britain’s army of small and medium enterprise owners have faced these and many more challenges over the last few months and have come out fighting, with some even seeing sales far outstrip pre-coronavirus levels.
Business at Claire Ransom’s plant website Lazy Flora has soared since lockdown. She set up the enterprise in 2018 with her savings from her former job in publishing and it had been growing steadily. But once lockdown started, ‘things went crazy’, says Claire.
An increase in traffic the week before lockdown in late March turned into a flood of orders which has yet to subside, with sales for March and April dwarfing last year’s annual turnover. Weekly orders rocketed from 200 to more than 1,000.
‘At the start, people were worried about getting to the shops and food running out, so they were buying our edible plant boxes with vegetables and herbs to the extent that we sold out four times,’ says Claire.
‘Demand then moved to outdoor plants as people were concerned about their mental wellbeing and coping with boredom. Now our customers are really keen on our petfriendly plants.’
The sharp jump in orders meant the company had to find larger premises, employ more staff and do everything it could to meet demand. Most impressively, Claire has managed to do all this from 3,000 miles away in Boston, US, where her husband works and where she has been stuck since the start of lockdown.
‘I had set up the business to be run remotely from the start, so being in Boston wasn’t a problem,’ says Claire. ‘The most frustrating thing is not being able to hug my team. They’ve really thrown their heart and soul into the business. We saw that there was a massive opportunity and if we didn’t do something we were going to miss it.’
ONLINE SALES ARE UP... LET’S ALL SAY CHEESE
THE need for lockdown luxuries has helped business boom at The Bath Soft Cheese Company, which makes award-winning artisan cheese from its organic dairy farm. Managing director Hugh Padfield says that when lockdown first hit, ‘it was panic stations’. He adds: ‘I was so concerned that I looked at our bank statements and worked out how long it would take for us to burn through our cash before we went bankrupt – it was that bad.’
Usually selling its cheese to restaurants, farmers’ markets, festivals and events such as Wimbledon and test matches at Lord’s, Hugh faced the prospect of a total collapse in income. He quickly restructured the company’s online offering, cutting margins, adding a cheese board selection box and providing free UK-wide home delivery on orders above £20.
‘Online sales exceeded all our expectations,’ he says. ‘We thought we were going to struggle to survive but turnover is up 25 per cent on last year, which is staggering.’
The cheese is placed in biodegradable packaging with a reusable ice pack and sent via courier DPD overnight. Deliveries have jumped from five boxes a day to 120 boxes. ‘It’s levelling off a bit now as people are going back to the shops again, but we hope people will see how easy it is to buy cheese online,’ says Hugh.
SCHOOL’S OUT – BUT LESSONS ARE STILL ON
IT ISN’T just food orders which are soaring in lockdown. Former teacher Lucy Spencer set up tuition agency Education Boutique four years ago and the company now has more than 80 tutors on its books. Pre-coronavirus all teaching was done on a one-to-one basis but once the schools closed, clients were asking what help could be given to their children online.
‘I decided to try group teaching to see if that would work, and more than 200 people signed up for my very first course which ran for six weeks,’ says Lucy, from Bracknell in Berkshire. ‘I’ve now just started my third and they’re proving really popular. I can set homework, chat to the children and make sure they’re confident about what is being learned.’
Online courses cover creative writing, comprehension, verbal and non-verbal reasoning and maths and are aimed at years three to six. Before lockdown Education Boutique had around 340 families on its books and it’s now grown to 1,200. ‘It’s really gone crazy,’ she says. Lucy is also offering courses on non-school activities such as cookery and photography.
Weekly turnover has quadrupled since the start of lockdown and Lucy is now planning to create an entire virtual school which would appeal to parents reluctant to send their children back.
‘Before we were all about one-toone teaching but we’ve now got clients all over the country,’ says Lucy. ‘It’s just nice to know that we’re helping.’