I know I am not in the minority opinion that small businesses have been hit the hardest by the COVID 19 pandemic of 2020. I remember first hearing the news about my business needing to be shut down temporarily. I thought it would only last a few weeks, maybe a month tops. However, as we all came to realize, those hopes were quite far fetched in retrospect. I hope for the sake of all small businesses owners like myself that things start getting back to normal. It is now early June of 2021, and I am seeing good progress being made in different parts of the country that lead me to believe we may be seeing the end of this blasted pandemic. I for one have struggled greatly to stay above water when it comes to my business, but I have been able to find some success in the form of online sales and eCommerce.
Normally I am not one to get much involved with eCommerce, but this pandemic has really brought out the necessity to get things rolling across the web. Luckily, my business has a pretty simple method of production and distribution, which made it relatively easy to switch to an online only model of selling and still be able to interact with and reach my customer base. I witnessed the downfall of a lot of my colleagues with business models that could not properly adapt to a more online environment, and this made it really hard for them to find any sort of business through eCommerce. However, I know that I am not the only one to find success in this way. Ecommerce has become widely successful in almost all markets and industries of our world. Just about anything you could find in a brick and mortar store you can now find online. What is even crazier is that, once you find that product online, it is most likely going to be a lot cheaper than what it would have been in a real store.
Going forward, I know that I have to keep on top of trends with my business. I am planning to re-open my brick and mortar storefront soon, but I will also continue my business online through my website. The means of distributing my product are not hard, especially with the right quality shipping supplies. The other nice thing about eCommerce is that production costs are relatively cheap, and one does not have to worry about a lot of overhead that would normally be associated with owning a literal store. Going out of business is something that all of us small business owners have to worry about. But hey, I did not start this business because I thought there would be no risk involved; I knew that there would be hard times that I had to face but I knew I would be ready for them.
This crazy time in my life will always serve as a reminder to myself that I can continue to pursue my passions and business ventures anyway I see fit. As long as I trust my gut and have lots of shipping supplies on hand, I can keep my business running no matter what the world throws at me. Unless, of course, the society collapses and I can no longer ship my products to people.
Boxed Up! 