Covid-19 effects on businesses

[Zee_18]

Hello,

As we are all aware we are in trying times at the moment! Alot of businesses are struggling to make ends meet, others have been forced to close their doors, some businesses are booming.
Whether its a viral out-break or a recccesion they both have impacts on businesses in a massive way.
How has this effected your business?
Has there been anything which you have learnt from this whole situation?
Have you as a business ever planned for such an event?

I hope to hear you thoughts.

 

[Mr D]

About 18 months ago we pivoted our business, focusing on some different stock for most of our purchases. It was planned, it was researched.
It took account of Brexit - both on stock levels and customer demand.

And the stuff is a major chunk of our sales - especially in the last 8 days.



Just hope enough suppliers on our list remain able to sell. Every one of them has lost a major chunk of their customers yesterday.

 

[Opinion87]

There are about a dozen threads all discussing the same thing right now. People need to start opening their eyes before they start typing.

 

[Lapak]

Hello,

As we are all aware we are in trying times at the moment! Alot of businesses are struggling to make ends meet, others have been forced to close their doors, some businesses are booming.
Whether its a viral out-break or a recccesion they both have impacts on businesses in a massive way.
How has this effected your business?
Has there been anything which you have learnt from this whole situation?
Have you as a business ever planned for such an event?

I hope to hear you thoughts.

My advice...whatever bisness that u have now..cut cost as lower as you can because this corona will roar until 2022. Everyone suffers and you cannot see much profit except those are doing delivery and online business. Everyone will tighten their expenses. So it's good to do gardening while waiting for it to over. All the best!

 

[ecommerce84]

My advice...whatever bisness that u have now..cut cost as lower as you can because this corona will roar until 2022. Everyone suffers and you cannot see much profit except those are doing delivery and online business. Everyone will tighten their expenses. So it's good to do gardening while waiting for it to over. All the best!

Cutting prices should really be a last resort in my opinion as you’ll end up in a race to the bottom chasing customers who are only ever interested in the lowest prices with no real loyalty to you or your business.

Instead try and offer better value elsewhere.

 

[Mr D]

Cutting prices should really be a last resort in my opinion as you’ll end up in a race to the bottom chasing customers who are only ever interested in the lowest prices with no real loyalty to you or your business.

Instead try and offer better value elsewhere.

Cutting costs however is often a good idea.

 

[IWW Limited]

We've seen growth and it hasn't come from mask sales! What we've seen is some of our competitors have shown their true colours, failed to service customers who require essential PPE, they've just shut doors, delayed production and failed them in a serious way. The new customer influx have been searching for service above price, that's where we come in. Ironically we tick a lot of boxes for a lot of businesses, often cheaper than their current provider and we're built on service.

We're also partners and we've tried to help where possible, selling items at below cost to our long standing customers, so they can keep their doors open.

Don't want to blow our own trumpet (too much) but really proud of when it came to it, we delivered for our customers.

 

[Mark T Jones]

My target market is leisure & hospitality - the knee jerk reaction was to dump it and find another target sector.

I decided instead to stick with leisure & hospitality and ride the storm. It's been a tight year, but far from catostrophic (just done our accounts to Mar '21 showing a loss of £1K)

Whilst lots of brokers stampeded to profit from CBILS, we made a very tough decision not to benefit from Government schemes, instead to offer free support and advice. It's counter-inuitive & FOMO is massive when you see your competitors shouting about deals they have done whilst you do none.

It's paying back now - I have actually received messages of thanks from businesses I gave advice to early on, thanking me for the help.

My clients have suffered badly but only a couple have failed. They are now getting ready to benefit from the staycation boom.

 

[Mark T Jones]

Cutting costs however is often a good idea.

*managing costs*

 

[Lapak]

Cutting prices should really be a last resort in my opinion as you’ll end up in a race to the bottom chasing customers who are only ever interested in the lowest prices with no real loyalty to you or your business.

Instead try and offer better value elsewhere.

Yes..that is what everyone doing now and is the big why china product prefered not bcos of quality but the cheap price.

 

[Mr D]

Yes..that is what everyone doing now and is the big why china product prefered not bcos of quality but the cheap price.

No reason to reduce price simply because the product is cheap to buy wholesale.

Unless chasing the customer demographic who go for the cheapest price.
In which case better hope you are the only seller who caters to them.

 

[Interestedobserver]

Cutting costs however is often a good idea.

Yep I assumed he meant cutting operating costs

 

[MBE2017]

Yes..that is what everyone doing now and is the big why china product prefered not bcos of quality but the cheap price.

Not everyone buys from China, it is a big world out there. China has also learnt to improve its quality massively compared to say 20 years ago, when the heads would fall of a Chinese hammer before you got to buy it.

We live in a competitive world, but only the really large boys can survive on discount pricing for long, 95% of normal UK businesses need to compete as suggested with better service, stock levels etc.

End of the day, it’s how much profit you make, and as importantly keep that determine your success, and buying well makes everything much easier.

 

[Rekkovitch]

The past year has been a complete eye opener for me with my business and has forced alot of changes that I had wanted to do but was afraid that they would upset customers.

The result is I get to spend more time with my family and less time working. I can honestly say that last summer was one of the best times in my life as the slowdown with work meant we got to go to the beach , woods or parks as a family. I streamlined the work and cut out all the deadwood customers which paid the least but took up the most of my time.

That said its been very unpredictable and we have made less money which balances out as we didn't spend much during this time.

The seiss grant was very welcome , but for me the 'honeymoon' of lockdown or whatever you want to call it is over so I do want to get back into some sort of 'new normal '

 

[Lapak]

The past year has been a complete eye opener for me with my business and has forced alot of changes that I had wanted to do but was afraid that they would upset customers.

The result is I get to spend more time with my family and less time working. I can honestly say that last summer was one of the best times in my life as the slowdown with work meant we got to go to the beach , woods or parks as a family. I streamlined the work and cut out all the deadwood customers which paid the least but took up the most of my time.

That said its been very unpredictable and we have made less money which balances out as we didn't spend much during this time.

The seiss grant was very welcome , but for me the 'honeymoon' of lockdown or whatever you want to call it is over so I do want to get back into some sort of 'new normal '

I admit to say that the lockdown last year was the best of all..my one week holiday in my hometown turned 3 months!!! Lucky for my husband his business still can run online. Return to work after that leave me and my son all by ourselves in the foreign state. Husband has to return to Sg for his business. My garden becomes greener and i lose 9kg doing exercise to occupy my time. Keep praying that this virus will pass soon.

 

[SillyBill]

The past year has been a complete eye opener for me with my business and has forced alot of changes that I had wanted to do but was afraid that they would upset customers.

The result is I get to spend more time with my family and less time working. I can honestly say that last summer was one of the best times in my life as the slowdown with work meant we got to go to the beach , woods or parks as a family. I streamlined the work and cut out all the deadwood customers which paid the least but took up the most of my time.

That said its been very unpredictable and we have made less money which balances out as we didn't spend much during this time.

The seiss grant was very welcome , but for me the 'honeymoon' of lockdown or whatever you want to call it is over so I do want to get back into some sort of 'new normal '

Quite. Unprecedented introspection has been the unlikely benefit of COVID-19 for business owners IMO. I think it forced many of us to look underneath the hood moreso than normal as one had little choice but to do otherwise. That should count dividends for well-run businesses in the long run, even if this has been a tumultuous time for some. For me it went in the opposite direction with work taking off and I've been contemplating how much longer I can sustain this pace for anyway and what my next moves will be.

 

[BustersDogs]

Hello,

As we are all aware we are in trying times at the moment! Alot of businesses are struggling to make ends meet, others have been forced to close their doors, some businesses are booming.
Whether its a viral out-break or a recccesion they both have impacts on businesses in a massive way.
How has this effected your business?
Has there been anything which you have learnt from this whole situation?
Have you as a business ever planned for such an event?

I hope to hear you thoughts.

Are you a journalist?

 

[momon121]

There are about a dozen threads all discussing the same thing right now. People need to start opening their eyes before they start typing.

I haven’t seen much maybe 2 max ?

 

[Ozzy]

I haven’t seen much maybe 2 max ?

That post was from March 2020, I imagine there may have been a bunch of posts a year ago as it was all starting to kick off then. This started out as a thread just over a year ago that has surfaced again, but I think it is interesting for those who were here a year ago reflecting on the past year as we are coming out of lockdown and some businesses are starting the road of recovery.

 

[MarkOnline]

It depends on which side of the post covid fence you sit on I suppose. For some their finances may be shot to pieces for others they have had a good run and built up more cash.

I think there are/will be some fantastic oportunities as businesess adapt to where we are now. This pandemic has certainly accelerated the rate at which things change. The ability to expand is presenting itself on an ongoig basis as businesses start to see where turnover levels are now that people are able to start to return to some sort of normality.

Its a good time to be brave IMO if you have the right business to take advantage of the uncertainty and you can mitigate the possible downside. But I think its still just an educated guess (as it has always been)

 

[porcupinecutie]

for me, our business still was not able to resume full operations due to a number of reasons. we are still working from home and the workload actually became heavier. after one whole year of the pandemic, all of us are growing tired, affecting the business itself. i cannot blame anyone for this, but it really is sad to see how disastrous the past year has been. i'm looking forward to the time when all this is over.

 

[Mr D]

for me, our business still was not able to resume full operations due to a number of reasons. we are still working from home and the workload actually became heavier. after one whole year of the pandemic, all of us are growing tired, affecting the business itself. i cannot blame anyone for this, but it really is sad to see how disastrous the past year has been. i'm looking forward to the time when all this is over.

May be a while before fully over, hopefully by sometime in summer we can have more relaxed rules.

I work from home, there is a push to get us back in the office though my team is well suited to work from home anyway. So looking to go back two days a week and hotdesk.

Eventually want to work from home full time but there is not yet the tech or the support for that. Another couple of years maybe. Can imagine quite a bit of tech will be developed and released to help with that more.

 

[SillyBill]

My experience in chemicals (and packaging) at least is the whole supply chain is completely and utterly broken in supply-demand matching as a result of COVID, not a surprise really; you can't switch manufacturing "on" and "off" and not expect consequences, deferred or instant. So many shortages and force majeures it is impossible to keep track of. Never, ever, seen anything comparable to what we're seeing at present.

Personally work isn't enjoyable at the moment, inundated with orders (good) yet basic commodities, feedstocks, speciality chemicals and packaging are on hugely expanded lead times (bad), and that is ignoring prices going to the moon (secondary when you can't get hold of stuff). For those that are becoming busy now after a semi-hiatus we are finding they are flying out the traps and placing 2-3 times typical (pre-covid 19) monthly volume orders on companies like ours, to which we simply can't fulfil. Increasingly am also finding the need to protect my staff on the front line who are being bombarded for stock yesterday all day every day, they have gone hell-for-leather since May last year. It really has been a tale of winners and losers, if we could spread some of this fortune we would, the volume uptick has almost broken our business. Controlled growth in manufacturing can sometimes be a challenge, attempting to run at double designed capacity for a plant when demand has in effect exploded out of nowhere, not so easy.

A final comment on inflation: I don't personally believe government inflation figures, politicised to get the value they want, but first hand experience of what we're seeing at the moment concludes that we simply haven't seen this sort of price inflation since the 70s, and that is not an exaggeration, prices if not already will be moving sharply upwards to the end consumer.

 

[Interestedobserver]

My experience in chemicals (and packaging) at least is the whole supply chain is completely and utterly broken in supply-demand matching as a result of COVID, not a surprise really; you can't switch manufacturing "on" and "off" and not expect consequences, deferred or instant. So many shortages and force majeures it is impossible to keep track of. Never, ever, seen anything comparable to what we're seeing at present.

Personally work isn't enjoyable at the moment, inundated with orders (good) yet basic commodities, feedstocks, speciality chemicals and packaging are on hugely expanded lead times (bad), and that is ignoring prices going to the moon (secondary when you can't get hold of stuff). For those that are becoming busy now after a semi-hiatus we are finding they are flying out the traps and placing 2-3 times typical (pre-covid 19) monthly volume orders on companies like ours, to which we simply can't fulfil. Increasingly am also finding the need to protect my staff on the front line who are being bombarded for stock yesterday all day every day, they have gone hell-for-leather since May last year. It really has been a tale of winners and losers, if we could spread some of this fortune we would, the volume uptick has almost broken our business. Controlled growth in manufacturing can sometimes be a challenge, attempting to run at double designed capacity for a plant when demand has in effect exploded out of nowhere, not so easy.

A final comment on inflation: I don't personally believe government inflation figures, politicised to get the value they want, but first hand experience of what we're seeing at the moment concludes that we simply haven't seen this sort of price inflation since the 70s, and that is not an exaggeration, prices if not already will be moving sharply upwards to the end consumer.

Similar situation but different

A friend of mine with an online business faced huge problems with loads more orders than the norm and waiting for stock to arrive from China so that he couldn't fulfil his normal delivery terms for his clients

He decided to still take the orders and then employ a new member of staff purely to deal with contacting customers and apologising for delays in delivery due to Covid impacting supply structure etc and giving them a chance to cancel orders etc

I believe 90 per cent were happy to wait and he kept their business

Different situation to you as he was selling retail and taking payments with orders online but that employee more than paid for themselves for him

And he was able to profit significantly from a huge upturn in demand when supply wasn't there and customers faced delays

What are the alternatives for your customers other than waiting for you guys to get the supplies they need from you?

 

[WaveJumper]

My son has had very similar problems within his business, supply chains have just been extremely difficult caused both by COVID and Brexit. With the virus closing factory production down around the world the effects on supply chain from computer chips to pencils has been pretty dramatic. I note IBM think it’s going to take two years before we see an improvement in chip supplies.

Importing and exporting across the EU has it’s problems some shipments from Germany as an example which normally came within days now sitting in customs for five weeks. Some of his suppliers in the UK are out of stock and quoting 2022 for new deliveries.

The one big issue is customers and many still don’t understand how difficult it has become and think the world is back to normal. Personally, I think even now it may get worse before it gets better, I hope I am wrong.

Inflation is creeping up as lack of supply is pushing up prices across the board and in my game, I see that reflected in a very twitchy stock market.

 

[SillyBill]

Similar situation but different

A friend of mine with an online business faced huge problems with loads more orders than the norm and waiting for stock to arrive from China so that he couldn't fulfil his normal delivery terms for his clients

He decided to still take the orders and then employ a new member of staff purely to deal with contacting customers and apologising for delays in delivery due to Covid impacting supply structure etc and giving them a chance to cancel orders etc

I believe 90 per cent were happy to wait and he kept their business

Different situation to you as he was selling retail and taking payments with orders online but that employee more than paid for themselves for him

And he was able to profit significantly from a huge upturn in demand when supply wasn't there and customers faced delays

What are the alternatives for your customers other than waiting for you guys to get the supplies they need from you?

For me it is lifestyle related to a certain extent. From my POV we make a healthy net profit each year, steady growth or at least maintaining performance is fine with me, an extra £250k+ net a year if I have to expand my business, set on loads of staff, go from 50-55 hour weeks (my standard) to 60-70 hours managing that growth in the short term (been there done it) - I'm simply not interested, not at all. It will make my lifestyle worst. I've been stressed for a year as we don't need to run the business as hard as this, I am in every day all day because I feel loyal to customers to service their businesses through a busy period for them. I am not thinking about conquering the world these days.

I also don't think there is much, if any, parallel in expanding a pure manufacturing business with a retail business who buys and sells. They are different beasts. Land among other things is a restriction, CAPEX of several hundred k potentially, chucking bodies at it doesn't work if you want to make a profit in UK manufacturing.

I expect we will return to "normal" in a few weeks. Having said that, been saying that for a year now...

 

[Interestedobserver]

One positive is you are in an industry where your are still trading and busier than ever

But of course it has to work for you personally as well. I totally get that.

 

[peppermintlover]

The one big issue is customers and many still don’t understand how difficult it has become and think the world is back to normal. Personally, I think even now it may get worse before it gets better, I hope I am wrong.

I think it becomes worse because of the elongated time that the global economy will be on a recess. Compounding negative effects, one after the other. It really stinks.

 

[IanSuth]

Prepare for some more disruption

I am in an area of the country (Berkshire) that has had no to very low cases for a while. Until this week

Heard of a few people with it around and about and now my daughter has just been told to self isolate for 10 days, someone in one of her secondary school classes felt iffy Tue took a lateral flow test which was negative, took another on Wednesday after school and netball (they are all told to do Wed & Sunday) which came up positive as did her sister. Whole family did a PCR yesterday and confirmed +ve today. Their brother is at another school and their father teaches at a 3rd so no one quite sure of the source of the infection BUT there is no way I believe the national figure is 3500 +ve per day when I can see 5 right there in an area listed as low infection rates.

The school have told the whole of that class and the netball team (so about 30) in total to isolate which has the power of law behind it but at least 1 family had booked half term away in wales so are going to do a LFT tomorrow am and if negative are setting off as planned.

Assuming that is the prevailing attitude now we are not going to knock this new variant on the head and we will see disruption again

 

[MarkOnline]

Prepare for some more disruption

I am in an area of the country (Berkshire) that has had no to very low cases for a while. Until this week

Heard of a few people with it around and about and now my daughter has just been told to self isolate for 10 days, someone in one of her secondary school classes felt iffy Tue took a lateral flow test which was negative, took another on Wednesday after school and netball (they are all told to do Wed & Sunday) which came up positive as did her sister. Whole family did a PCR yesterday and confirmed +ve today. Their brother is at another school and their father teaches at a 3rd so no one quite sure of the source of the infection BUT there is no way I believe the national figure is 3500 +ve per day when I can see 5 right there in an area listed as low infection rates.

The school have told the whole of that class and the netball team (so about 30) in total to isolate which has the power of law behind it but at least 1 family had booked half term away in wales so are going to do a LFT tomorrow am and if negative are setting off as planned.

Assuming that is the prevailing attitude now we are not going to knock this new variant on the head and we will see disruption again

Been following the infection rates on the BBC map, the colours in certan areas are darkening (inceased infectiions per 100,000 but the hospital admission and death rates are still relatively low) The vaccine offers protection from serious illness fromthe Indian variant, lets just hope it doesnt mutate into a variant the vaccine doesnt protect us from, and hospital admissions and death rates rise. Thats always been the concern and I suppose it is a statistical certainty sometime in the future..

 

[IanSuth]

Been following the infection rates on the BBC map, the colours in certain areas are darkening (inceased infectiions per 100,000 but the hospital admission and death rates are still relatively low) The vaccine offers protection from serious illness from the Indian variant, lets just hope it doesnt mutate into a variant the vaccine doesnt protect us from, and hospital admissions and death rates rise. Thats always been the concern and I suppose it is a statistical certainty sometime in the future..

From what i have heard seen really we need people to have had both jabs, as compared with the old Kent variant (which was more virulent than the original) the Indian variant is more resistant to the vaccine. 1 jab gave you 65-70% protection with Kent, it is 30-35% with Indian (both are 99%+ for 2 jabs)

I think now is the most dangerous time as a lot of people are basically saying "I have had 1 jab, I am under 50, i am bored of restrictions, the weather looks good I am going out and about"

I strongly suspect No10 is currently host to a heated debate about whether than can actually even get away with delaying June 21st or whether it will just really divide the country even more with a huge number of people ignoring restrictions

 

[Forgot password]

? Who is going to fill the hospitals and overwhelm the NHS Ian?

Please remember without any intervention ie vaccines the chance of becoming seriously ill or dying from this is so remote unless your over 82 and have at least 2 underlying medical conditions and I would guess that these people ‘vulnerables’ have protected themselves.

Let’s get perspective and get the hearts of business beating again. Enough is Enough.

If your worried stay at home.

 

[Interestedobserver]

JJ

There is no way the Govt want to stop the relaxation of the rules

But clearly something has them worried in the figures

We've seen it before. We think we have got this thing beaten and it comes back and puts us in the shxt again

I'm hoping for the best. Got a few short break holidays booked next few months in the UK. I want to be able to go and enjoy them.

 

[Forgot password]

Ok so is this a true statement or not? - virus is still out there true or false - of course true but we have a vaccine for it true or false? Of course true, does the virus in the main kill and seriously hurt elderly people over 82? True of course, so 99% of the target audience it affects we know about and in the main that group has been protected against it? Again true. So does it matter then that for example 1 million cases (cases not necessarily ill people) are recorded in a months time but only 37 people are hospitalised?

Protect the NHS by memory was the slogan... so please tell me who are we now protecting them from?

Where is the overwhelming number of hospitalisations going to come from? WHERE??

Oh hang on... you saying the Indian variant evades the vaccine? Wrong.. it doesn’t. Or maybe your saying the vax’s don’t work?... wrong again, so again please tell me your concerns ( besides a variant that does evade the vaccine, that’s a different story) as I am interested to see the logic and reasoning for the doomsdayers to be holding the threat of holding off the 21st unlock and there 3rd wave theories (besides a variant evader)

It’s screwing with people’s personal mental health and businesses especially in hospitality and events plus many others where they simply cannot plan ahead. So what is the reason? Please just give me one.

 

[Interestedobserver]

Ok so is this a true statement or not? - virus is still out there true or false - of course true but we have a vaccine for it true or false? Of course true, does the virus in the main kill and seriously hurt elderly people over 82? True of course, so 99% of the target audience it affects we know about and in the main that group has been protected against it? Again true. So does it matter then that for example 1 million cases (cases not necessarily ill people) are recorded in a months time but only 37 people are hospitalised?

Protect the NHS by memory was the slogan... so please tell me who are we now protecting them from?

Where is the overwhelming number of hospitalisations going to come from? WHERE??

Oh hang on... you saying the Indian variant evades the vaccine? Wrong.. it doesn’t. Or maybe your saying the vax’s don’t work?... wrong again, so again please tell me your concerns ( besides a variant that does evade the vaccine, that’s a different story) as I am interested to see the logic and reasoning for the doomsdayers to be holding the threat of holding off the 21st unlock and there 3rd wave theories (besides a variant evader)

It’s screwing with people’s personal mental health and businesses especially in hospitality and events plus many others where they simply cannot plan ahead. So what is the reason? Please just give me one.

I'm not saying anything

They were clearly worried the Indian Variant might evade the vaccine. It appears to have some success with this but hopefully not enough.

They were also worried this in turn would lead to more hospitalizations. Again so far so good.

It also appears to be a matter of when rather than if that a new worse variant does achieve the above

I'm expecting us all to be having vaccines every 6 months and it having some ongoing impact

Surely we have beaten the worst though already?

 

[Interestedobserver]

The reason there is so much caution is we are learning about Covid, it's variants and the vaccines day by day.

Simple as that.

We are clearly doing better in the UK than most though. But we can't count our chickens yet.

 

[Forgot password]

Yes! This is what I am saying.. we can only go on the facts and data we have now and that’s all good so why hold the abusers back of the hand aloft over our heads?

If we accept your policy ie ‘there could be’ then we will never break free of this cycle.. ever...

[Removed unappreciated comments]

 

[Forgot password]

The reason there is so much caution is we are learning about Covid, it's variants and the vaccines day by day.

Simple as that.

We are clearly doing better in the UK than most though. But we can't count our chickens yet.

How about Texas?

 

[fisicx]

Thread under moderation review

 

[Ozzy]

Any chance we can keep this thread sensible?
I've edited out the unappreciative comments and unlocked the thread.