Looking back on the COVID-19 Pandemic 5 years later | Carol Schroeder | Home Accents Today

I’m not positive what may be an applicable option to commemorate closing our retailer because of the pandemic, however we simply marked the fifth anniversary of that unhappy day.  What a tricky time it was for unbiased retailers – and virtually each different enterprise.  Again in March 2020, nearly all of us thought that COVID-19 could be over in a few months. And we actually wouldn’t have anticipated that many shopkeepers would nonetheless be struggling 5 years later to regain our pre-pandemic gross sales ranges.

We closed our store on March 25, 2020, and reopened it to only 5 prospects at a time on July 1. By then it regarded like issues may be again to regular by the autumn. Even as we speak, we have now workers who’re masked each time they’re at work, in addition to buyers who’re nonetheless being cautious. Maybe it’s simply as properly we couldn’t foresee that 5 years in the past!

Quite a bit has changed since 2020, and naturally not all of it may be blamed on the pandemic. However Amazon’s grip on American shopping for habits, which had already been rising steadily, was strengthened exponentially by the necessity to keep house.  In keeping with Statista, Amazon’s income was $280 billion worldwide in 2019. In 2024, it had risen to $637 billion. That may be a staggering improve of 225 p.c.

One other development that was influenced by the pandemic was the decline in visits to shops by gross sales reps. That is largely because of the improve in wholesale purchases being made on-line, both utilizing the strong web sites now provided by some distributors and gross sales companies or through the vastly profitable B2B platform Faire. Greater than 100,000 manufacturers now promote on Faire globally. It’s exhausting to say whether or not these on-line choices would have gained as a lot traction had retailer consumers, and gross sales reps, not began to keep away from journey and commerce exhibits resulting from COVID-19.

The scarcity of workers has made it troublesome to take care of intensive open hours, which began within the pre-pandemic financial motion for greater wages, in addition to important adjustments in inhabitants demographics. However the desirability of working from house – at first because of the risks of publicity to COVID – undeniably had an influence on the restoration of the retail work power.

These are all elements that unbiased shopkeepers have little management over, so we should always not really feel that we’re at fault if we haven’t had the strong restoration from the pandemic that we’d hoped for. Nevertheless, on this emotional anniversary, I do wish to acknowledge with gratitude the federal government packages that helped my enterprise proceed to pay our workers in 2020. I additionally wish to thank our prospects for doing curbside pickup, ready in line out within the chilly to be allowed into the shop and making some extent to buy native. With out them, we might not have gotten by way of these difficult years.

Carol Schroeder is the creator of Specialty Shop Retailing and co-owner of Orange Tree Imports in Madison, Wisconsin.