How shopping small makes a big impact in your community | Personal Finance
Nabors had to close her storefront early in the pandemic when sales plummeted from around…
Nabors had to close her storefront early in the pandemic when sales plummeted from around $15,000 per month to just $500 in March.
“I thought, ‘We can’t make rent like this.’ So we moved everything back into our home,” Nabors says.
Customers kept reaching out, asking Nabors to add products to her website and encouraging her to do more outreach on social media. Her online sales grew from around 10 per month to 50 to 100 per day. She reopened her storefront in May and is now looking to expand.
“We were able to actually thrive and grow during the pandemic,” she says.
Local shops hire locally
Businesses need to staff up as they reopen and gradually bring operations back to pre-pandemic levels. That hiring is going to happen locally, says Tom Sullivan, vice president of small-business policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
“Small businesses have a unique advantage when it comes to hiring: a network of community that is different than Indeed or LinkedIn,” Sullivan says. “We’re going to see more of an emphasis on local hiring than we have ever seen before.”
Nabors is already looking to hire. Her business went from three employees pre-pandemic (two of whom have since relocated) to one employee and a handful of family members in the early months of the pandemic. Now, she has five employees, is shopping for warehouse space and plans to hire 22 new employees.
