With surges in the virus cases around the country at different months of the year, small businesses suffer the most. Many of these businesses have had to look for creative solutions to stay open and afloat. Business is hard enough in the first five years after opening, but during a pandemic, many small business owners know that if they can’t stay open and stay in operation during this entire year, they will permanently close their doors.
Restaurants or Bars Can’t Serve Indoors
When restaurants and bars could not serve large crowds indoors, they learned how to circumvent this problem by moving most of their patrons outdoors. Spacing patio tables far apart for social distancing, the restaurants could continue business as usual, albeit with fewer customers. Bars also constructed outdoor seating so that small groups of people could still come and enjoy a beer or other adult beverage.
Some bars and restaurants have made incredible alterations to their establishments such that their seating is in the open air while remaining indoors! To do this, the windows of these establishments open all the way up like glass hangar doors. The inside is as much the outside and allows for freer air movement and less concentration of the virus.
As other restrictions came into play, restaurants and bars required reservations for specific time slots, restricting seated patrons to 25% or less. Patrons are expected to leave when their time slot is up. Waitstaff disinfect the table and leave it open for a bit before seating anyone else there.
Boutique Shops Utilize Percentage Populations and QR Code Reservations
Boutique shops–those stores that are not big box stores–utilize one or both approaches to operating at limited capacity. In doing so, they can continue to remain open and in operation. A certain number of people are allowed in the store at any one time, and tape lines guide traffic on the floors. Like the restaurants and bars, the amount of bodies in the space is 25% or less.
Lines may form socially-distanced queues outside these shops, but a more familiar and emerging approach uses a QR code reservation system. Consumers use their smartphones to scan a QR code outside the store. They then select a time to return and shop that boutique. It removes the need for lines outside and the issue of too many people trying to enter the shop at the same time.
Help Anywhere They Can Get It
Other small businesses are relying on each other with a sort of co-op and/or barter system to stay afloat. For example, one small business owner that sells software may need updates to his/her website, while a website developer may need new software to keep track of customers. The two meet virtually and strike a bargain that both can financially benefit from.
The pandemic relief funds in the spring and early summer really helped small businesses. They could take out small business emergency funding loans as well as PPP (paycheck protection plan) loans to pay employees and keep their businesses in operation. Even sole proprietors were able to take advantage of these programs. However, they were difficult to navigate and apply for.
People Helping People
One of the most inspirational things we’ve seen over the past year is businesses are trying to help other businesses. For example, there’s Cory Briggs, a San Diego attorney specializing in working with small businesses. He has helped local companies navigate the newest pandemic-related laws and regulations about sick leave, unemployment, evictions, and more. To help struggling small businesses stay afloat, entrepreneur Mark Cuban reportedly reimburses his employees for lunch and coffee purchases from local, independently owned small businesses. And Chicago-based fashion label Christina Karin shut down stores so that the company could devote their energies to sewing face masks for the local hospitals.