COVID-19 Small Business Journal: Week 15 Update

The other day, I ran outside to rescue my hanging laundry from the rain. If that isn’t the story of my life I don’t know what is. And there was a rainbow! It was actually a double rainbow, although the second one is a bit harder to see.

It was there and then it was gone. The blink of an eye. My laundry called for me to come out and see it before I missed it. Clean underwear and towels looking out for me, as always. The rain came and then the clouds passed over and it was sunny again, and I had taken all the laundry off the line for nothing.

In any case, we continue onward. Inventory day, Tuesday, is fast approaching, and Jon is printing spreadsheets and making plans. Putting post-it notes on shelves. You would think it wouldn’t be so hard—I mean, how many bottles of Take sumi do you have, exactly?—but the numbers swirl around and you can’t remember if you’ve counted this or that. Where do we put this special order pen that the customer changed their mind on? Who’s going to count all the samples? All of a sudden, there’s a mad rush to the computer to answer an incoming live chat.

Actually, this year with the shops closed, we’ve amalgamated a lot of inventory from the front and from the studio shop, so it shouldn’t be so bad. Ho ho.

We are currently no closer to opening the shop for in-store browsing. I know that’s not a great update, but we’re such a high touch shop experience. You come so you can try out our tester pens, feel the weight of a pen in your hand, flip through a notebook to see how its GSM flops around, putter indecisively about the disposable gel pen table without someone in a hazmat suit hovering over you, spritzing you cheerfully with something alcohol-based and lemon-flavoured. I’m kidding. That’s not actually how it’s going to be.

In all seriousness, we are working on it, ordering things in, looking at our furniture set-up, watching how other shops are doing things, because we want everyone to be safe and comfortable coming in. Knowing that there will be limits to how safe and comfortable we can make it, we are just trying our best to make the wisest decision we can for our staff and for our customers and for our shop as a whole. We’re pretty grateful for all of your patience and support and encouragement. Here’s to rainbows and blue skies.