EFFECTS OF THE CORONAVIRUS ON A SMALL BUSINESS - DAY 12 (28/03/2020)

After yesterday’s drunken blog I thought the today especially with the unit closed for selecting would be quieter however first thing this morning I am phoned by an MoD planner reference an item they would never buy from me normally but due to shops and others closing they need us to supply, I won’t say what the item is as to avoid everyone speculating on why the Ministry of Defence doesn’t have enough of them. Like everyone they depend on supply chains and no one ever saw this coming and definatly didn’t see everyone shutting down in a state of emergency. As long as we can get them on Monday morning the MoD will pay £24 instead of the standard RRP of £39.99, we are making a margin on these items but hopefully not fleecing them, COVID-19 aside, from a business point of view we want them to come back for more and more stuff. Its not about the quick buck, if Contact Left survives this COVID-19 if it wants to make the big money its need to be big orders at low margins.

Another reader of the blog has put a contact our way and they have just ordered 300 bottles of the 500ml hand sanitiser and may want to put a much order in, on Monday. I have never been that great at marketing but the blog is really paying off and a lot of customers are being referred to us by readers. Thanks for everyone who text me last night after I drunkenly put my phone number on.

So over the past 12 days peoples buying habits have changed, items like Air Rifle Pellets and Targets have grown massively along with water carriers, shemaghs. Also we are selling items that we have never normally sold online and this is due to other sellers that have temporarily closed their online businesses. What we expected to happen 2 weeks ago is happening a lot of items that were popular sellers have stopped completely, I won’t mention the brands as we sell a lot of niche products from small manufacturers and I don’t want to discredit those brands here. My belief is when this is all over those products will continue to sell again but the military right now has changed its role so the average military person isn’t going on promotion courses or exercises so they don’t need certain items like they used to. They do however need other items.

Over the next 3 to 4 weeks what will happen is online shops will start discounting more and more, take advantage of this everyone as the shops big and small need you to buy this stuff. Small businesses like ours have loads of stock that when things go slow we can offload you are not taking advantage we wouldn’t be selling it if we didn’t need the money. Certain brands that haven’t sold well when the going is good will be offloaded or maybe just certain items from that brand. It will stop becoming about profit margins and more about keeping jobs and paying the rent.

Thanks everyone for reading and share the life out of this, hope you all have a pleasant evening. Cheers David