Amid pandemic, mask sales suddenly are big business
Last year, Brooke Audino started a shop on the online marketplace Etsy putting custom vinyl decals on face masks, which were popular at concerts.
Then, on Friday, hours after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended all Americans wear face masks in public, her phone buzzed with a push notification from Etsy’s CEO Josh Silverman. He wrote that 10,000 sellers had sold masks over the last week, but demand was likely to outpace supply. “We are letting sellers know that those with the skill and materials may want to consider creating and selling face masks on Etsy.”
And so she did.
Ms. Audino’s mom had run a business, Grand Champ Bows, out of their Cranberry home for more than a decade making bows for cheerleading teams. The two women quickly turned the bow and scrunchie fabric into mask material — opening AudinoMasks for online business Saturday morning at $10 per mask.
“The Etsy traffic is ridiculous,” Ms. Audino said. “We’ve probably sold over 100 so far — in two days.”
They sold out of about 40 masks made with Steelers fabric, shipping them all over the country, including Hawaii.
The CDC’s recommendation that all Americans wear nonmedical face masks in public — as well as one for Pennsylvanians from Gov. Tom Wolf — thrust masks into high-demand accessories. Tutorials abound online for making your own mask from ponytail elastics and T-shirts, dish towels or bandannas, but many prefer to just buy one with their choice of fabric.
Enter the online entrepreneurs who — unlike mass market companies — can respond within hours to new demand.
Rachel Sloane McPherson, who grew up in New Kensington and Indiana Township but now lives in Clarksville, Tenn., started an online shop several months ago selling crocheted baby items.
She first made a mask for a former nanny who is now a nurse and donated some to her hospital. She then started selling them on her website Floss Boss Designs and sold out temporarily over the weekend.
To keep up with demand, she has been homeschooling her 4
and 6-year-old children until lunchtime and sewing until midnight. Her husband — an Army platoon sergeant trained to jump out of helicopters — has received a lesson in ironing and is helping as well. They have watched prices rise on other online shops as demand has increased, but kept their $12 price the same.
“I’m not trying to put our kids through college here,” she said. Ms. McPherson’s parents are both retired health care workers, and she is pleased to feel like she’s playing a small part to stop the spread of COVID-19.
“I think everything is feeling like just staying home is not enough to be able to help people,” she said. “I have the ability to sew and that’s what I’m going to do.”
In Upper St. Clair, Cristi Parks also had an Etsy shop, occasionally selling flip-flops with cloth straps and party skirts. A few weeks ago, home from her job as a paraprofessional in the Peters Township School District, she began sewing masks for friends and family.
After receiving orders from strangers through word of mouth, she put some for sale online. The first week, she was thrilled to sell four masks on her Etsy shop CinnamonSewCrafty, named for her dog. The next week she sold 30, and the week after that, more than 100.
Her son, home from college at Purdue University, is doing her invoices and her husband is working “procurement” — sourcing fabric and suddenly hard-to-find elastic. “I got a big delivery of elastic today and it was like Christmas,” she said Monday.
Other Pittsburghers have banded together to make masks to donate to health care workers, from informal neighborhood cooperatives to Facebook groups.
Spearheaded by small businesses such as Firecracker Fabrics in Morningside and Knotzland in Wilkinsburg, a group called (mask) Makers PGH is donating masks to workers who need them. Amanda Vereb, of Iron Horse Atelier, is donating at least one mask for each one she sells.
Bernadette Gerbe, of Gerbe Glass, has been making masks in the window of her Lawrenceville studio, sometimes handing them out to delivery workers as they pass by.
And then there’s David Alan, who has sold luxury suits for the past four years. In January, he opened a storefront on Mount Washington. With many people working from home, he has lost 90% to 95% of his business.
After several sleepless nights ironing out logistics, he pivoted to mask production. By Friday, his factory in Thailand was able to churn out 30,000 masks per day, in a sleek black fabric with “We’re in This Together” written on one cheek. His website crashed over the weekend from high traffic but is now back up. He has sold more than 100 masks to the Aliquippa Giant Eagle and the Robinson Chick-fil-A for use by their workers.
Through a connection in New York, he’s also sent some to the New York Police Department.
“It’s heartwarming to see how many people around the world are coming together to battle this,” he said. “It’s just an opportunity in history that’s going to be talked about forever.”