I have always loved my brick and mortar business. I live in a small, rural farming community in which everybody knows each other and there is an overarching sense of family and community. I have a small shop downtown that sells candles, soaps, lotions, and other things one might find in a department store like Bath and Body Works or something like that. I have grown quite fond of my business, as I took it over from my mom when she passed away several years ago. All of our products are made in-house, and the community has really come to love the work we do and we have a lot of loyal customers. However, a problem arose when we were faced with the COVID regulations that came into play in early 2020. What I mean by this is that, due to the CDC’s regulations that the government put in place, most in store businesses were temporarily shut down and could no longer operate for the time being.

As a small business owner, this was super hard for me to hear. I had poured my heart and soul into this business and I wanted it to succeed. However, I knew that without traffic in my store and people coming in to regularly check out my new products, there was no way for me to keep up with rent payments and my ever-present mortgage. I needed to come up with a solution. That’s why I hopped on one of the biggest bandwagons of the century thus far; eCommerce. Now, I don’t do too well with technology and it is generally not a huge part of my business, but due to the circumstances I was willing to make sacrifices and compromises to not go completely under water during this terrible time. 

The first problem I needed to address in starting my ecommerce business was where I would be selling my products from. What I mean by that is what software or program I wanted to use online that could move my inventory in a convenient yet simple way. I ended up starting a website and hired someone to create a store web page for me. Ecommerce is interesting because it is a lot easier to get involved with than most people think. It honestly only took about a week or so until my online store was ready to go, and it did not cost me much to hire someone to do the work either. Once that was all set, I began marketing my products over facebook and instagram, mostly targeting people in my local area that were already buying from my store in-person. This was going super well, and within the first month I had almost hit my normal benchmark for incoming revenue; however, the difference here is that my operating costs were much lower. Not having to pay for having my store front open downtown meant that I was bringing in a lot more money on the net.

Another issue I came across was when I started getting orders from people in different parts of the country. I had to invest in some serious packing supplies in order to make sure the items I was shipping remained intact and undamaged. Using different packing supplies like bubble wrap or packing peanuts was a game-changer for me, especially when it came to shipping my fragile items like candles.