Being your store owner is a term that is gaining ground in the present times. Serving under people may be the safer option, but the saying ‘no pain, no gain’ makes taking risks worthwhile.
The number of businesses since the year 2010 has grown exponentially and in every field and segment. There are businesses in areas that I never thought possible.
A show by the name Family Diggers is quite popular on National Geographic. It shows families whose prime means of income is through digging places and finding lost treasures. That is a business. And people live wealthily off of it.
Not getting more astray and coming to the point here, I have mentioned the vast number of business endeavors to give you an idea about the proportion of businesspeople in the world.
These are the people who are the most adversely affected by the COVID-19 and its consequent lockdown.
And this piece of writing is going to highlight one of them, a business owner who had a profitable clothing store until it wasn’t.
How it All Began?
The three basic needs of humans are food, shelter, and clothing. All three are immensely lucrative ideas for a business. Our owner thought the same.
As there is not a single person on the planet, who is ever satisfied with the number of clothing items he has, there would be a perpetual need to buy clothes.
From babies to age, everyone loves shopping more than they need it. Therefore, a store that provided clothes for all ages and genders could never fail.
And it did not. Located on Oxford Street, our entrepreneur’s store was always bustling with customers and the bell of the door opening for more arrivals.
He had two employees, along with the constant supervision of he and his wife, he was more than happy with the store, its sales, and the subsequent income.
What does Business mean to him?
The majority of the small scale businesses do not have more than one outlet or manufacturing units, that is why they are called small.
So, for these business persons, their business is the most crucial aspect of their lives. It is responsible for
- bringing food on their dining table every day.
- paying the essential utility bills every month.
- making them financially sound to deal with emergencies.
- giving them a sense of giving back to society, in terms of
- the employment they generate for somebody;
- and the charities they regularly donate to.
In simpler words, our store owner entire life revolves around his store that sells clothes. His needs, dreams, and aspirations will only accomplish if that store is functional and profitable.
The COVID-19’s Devastation
2020 brought along such a being that can bring an apocalypse. This is a micro-organism that cannot be seen.
However, it can spread like wildfire when its host comes into contact with someone else. Even the mighty tiger could not evade it.
Such a contagious disease has forced mankind to stay caged until it passes. The end of this quarantine is unknown; it could last months or even a year.
So,
- When the fear of getting infected and dying is a continuously hovering over you, would you think about buying some new clothes?
- When people are losing their income sources more rapidly than ever, would anyone think about buying some new clothes?
- When there aren’t enough supplies of food and medicine at the stores, and a diabetic woman has to go through every store in London to get a syringe to take her insulin shot, do you think buying clothes is even going through her mind?
Therefore, the COVID-19 has brought down our store owner to the rock bottom after flying with the birds.
- He was finally earning enough to start saving for his retirement.
- He had set up his son’s college fund.
- He had two employees, whose rent and food was bought by the salary paid them.
- He finally thought he had come out of the shell of poverty.
And then the lockdown shut his income, and he knew by the time it would end, he would be back to where he started.
Can he find Reprieve?
The present time may seem like a never-ending abyss of time, but it truly isn’t. Mankind had overcome the Spanish Flu of 1920, which had a fatality rate far higher than the COVID-19.
I am confident we would get over it and tell stories of the long stay-at-home to the next generations, maybe even with a few laughs.
The thing of importance is how your business and your income would survive in the meantime. There are a few ways that you can try to implement during the quarantine to avoid taking on loans for bad credit with no guarantor.
Here are two of them
Use Social Media
The foremost is to make use of various social media platforms. Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are used in abundance when people want to kill time. And you won’t want to do that more than in quarantine.
So, all the store owner has to do is make a business account on Instagram. This would highlight the good quality and versatile collection of the store with numerous posts in a day and make the customers crave to buy them.
Sell Online
People cannot go out, so the seller has to come and sell the goods to the customers. Online sales that are more cautious about the coronavirus’ preventive measures are hiking by the day.
Starting contactless deliveries, with your delivery men wearing gloves and mask when they deliver the package is one such measure of allurement.
Trying these two and being somewhat successful in selling did give our store owner some semblance of sanity in the chaotic business world.
Winding Up
In the end, all I want to say is that this one was not just a tale one store owner, but of many. All over Britain people losing their livelihood and their lives.
Giving them some ray of hope through this blog and letting them know that they are not alone in the suffering was my aim. I hope I succeeded in it. The business store owner needs to keep on hanging for life, and the turbulent waters would soon pass away.
