Media shop owner wonders if she’ll ever recover
MEDIA » Ten weeks ago, Kathleen Rode closed the door to the business she adored, thinking it would be a short-term event.
“We closed on the weekend of March 14 with the same belief that everybody had, that this might be a couple of weeks,” the owner of Local Home & Gifts said. “I then put some focus into driving some online sales.”
Then, Easter came and went, as did Mother’s Day. Now, the graduation season has all but deflated.
“Online sales have been successful enough,” Rode said, “(but) it’s not paying the rent. It feels like just a little bit of a lifeline to keeping the business alive a little bit. It’s like a little bit of resuscitation.”
She wonders what it will be like when – and if – she can reopen.
The gift store noted for its Delco items and custom-made items with specific towns like Media and Folcroft opened about 15 years ago in Media. About six years ago, Kevin and Monica Schramm sold it to Rode after Kevin was getting relocated to the Boston, Mass., area.
“I had been in the reinsurance business and was looking for a change,” Rode said, adding that she had been a customer of Monic when the store was 29 W. State St. It moved to 15 E. State St. in 2018.
“I would always go there first before I went to Macy’s,” Rode said. “I like the customer service and I liked the uniqueness of the gift. I liked spending my money in a family-owned business. It was important to me. Above and beyond that, I liked coming to State Street to shop. I liked the experience.”
When she bought the store, she was familiar with the product lines that the previous owner had.
“I knew what I liked and what I didn’t like,” she explained. “I purchased a database of sales and customers. I loved seeing the patterns. I liked seeing what people liked and didn’t like.”
And with being an entrepreneur, she learned from her mistakes. “I knew with every mistake I made, it was a lesson and I was going to learn something from it,” she said. “It goes with being an entrepreneur.”
One of her favorite parts about being a small business owner is the clientele.
“I was great fun getting to know the customers,” Rode said. “I miss them coming in the door when the door’s propped open. I miss their conversations … I miss Dining Under the Stars – what an exciting time in Media. Will anything be the same?”
She like other small business owners felt an imbalance in how the shutdowns were administered and lifted.
“Right now, I would like to see us small-business owners, myself and everybody else who’s in the small boat, be given the same consideration that Walmart is being given and the same consideration that Target is being given,” Rode said. “Give our customers the opportunity to decide whether they want to talk through their door and give the small businesses, the retailers the opportunity to practice safety standards and continue their business.”
On Friday, Gov. Tom Wolf announced that all counties, including Delaware County, would be moved into the yellow phase by June 5. At that time, in-person retail will be opened, although curbside and delivery are recommended.
Of the big-box entities, Rode said, “Why can’t we be given the same opportunity? It’s not any more safe or less safe in one business or the other. Nobody is socially shaming those stores. Those stores are profiting during this time.
“At a small-business level, we have better control of practicing the safety standards than the bigger stores,” she said. “We just don’t have the opportunity to do so.”
Rode’s tried to be productive over the last few months.
“I do come in the shop every couple of days to fill an order,” she said. “I’ve certainly learned the in’s and out’s of my website.”
She also applied for the Payroll Protection Program – twice, and was approved the second time around.
“Seventy-five percent is used for payroll,” Rode said. “My store isn’t open, I can’t possibly use it for payroll. It then converts into a loan. The last thing another small-business owner needs is a loan.”
She explained she was unable to apply for the county’s Delco Strong Small Business Support Program because she didn’t have her
2019 tax returns complete. “I felt like in order for that grant to be given to small-business owners, specifically at brick and mortars, I felt that they built walls that I shouldn’t have to climb in order to get that money,” she said.
More than 1,000 businesses applied for the
$7,500 grant program offered by Delaware County Council and through the Delaware County Redevelopment Authority. While officials hope to begin distributing funds in the next week to 200 businesses, they are working to find revenue to fund the remainder.
Rode worries about the makeup of the future landscape.
“I have a huge amount of inventory sitting on my shelves collecting dust,” she said. “I can’t open my doors. Media’s expensive, I have a rent … A nice couple own the building – I’m sure they have the weight of a mortgage that is holding them down. It’s hard, it’s hard.”
She said it would have been nice to see loan forgiveness and she’s concerned about what a potential resurgence in the fall would mean to small businesses.
“Being in retail is a highrisk business,” she acknowledged. “It’s really making me rethink the risk that I’ve taken – the inventory on my shelves, the rent … I still have those same risks.”
She hopes there’s a way for small businesses to survive.
“I don’t want to see small businesses suffer,” Rode said. “I’m scared to death how this will pan out. It will be harder to find the money to refresh my inventory, to find the money to keep going. I don’t know if my small business will survive this. It won’t be magic when the doors open.”