By New Hampshire Retail Association
In speaking with retailers in New Hampshire, the one word that best describes retailing during this pandemic is uncertainty. This pandemic has winners and losers. Some retailers are doing well, many are not, but all are uncertain about the holiday season, how the year will end, and what’s going to happen for 2021.
People are staying home and realizing that they want a better home environment, new furniture or appliances, a television, or improved electronics for their home offices. So appliance, furniture, home improvement and electronics stores are doing well.
A furniture and appliance store in Gorham is doing well sales wise. But manufacturers can’t keep up with the demand. Manufacturers were closed for months in the spring, and with COVID-19 cases spiking across the country, they are closing again, or working at very limited capacity. Orders are currently taking 15 to 19 weeks to come in. Their biggest fear is that customers won’t wait and will cancel their orders. Because of this, the store has stopped taking large deposits for orders, which is impacting their cash flow.
This problem with the supply chain is happening all over the state. Very hard for retailers to get inventory and manufacturers can’t get what they need to make products or packaging. A candy store in downtown Portsmouth said one of their top holiday sellers is Hot Fudge Sauce she makes — they can’t get lids for the cans. A pool and patio store in Amherst has their key category — hot tub sales at $0, off $300,000 due to supply chain constraints, and they won’t get more tubs until late spring. They launched gas fireplaces to try and fill the gap, and now that supply chain is backed up for three months.
We continue to see the shift to online sales that has been hastened by the pandemic. It has been a boom for larger retailers, but many Main Street retailers still do not have an online presence, and some are only seeing a few sales a day online. Overall, online shopping for Thanksgiving weekend was up 44%, but not for the small independent retailers.
It is challenging for retailers to operate their businesses during a pandemic. The new protocols are very difficult for retailers to follow. There is an expense for signage, face masks, plexi-glass shields, and sanitizing. Keeping up with cleaning and safely arranging the store to allow for physical distancing requires extra hours for staff, when they have significantly less money coming in. Dealing with customers that refuse to wear masks is still happening. Doing curbside pickup is a big expense — employees are paid to shop, retailers need to rearrange space to store orders waiting for pickup, staff needs to run the products out to customers. And this won’t go away when the pandemic is over.
Retailers are nervous about stimulus money they received. A jewelry store in Manchester got a Main Street Relief grant, and used part of the money to increase marketing, working hard to increase their sales. Now they are worried that their sales may have increased more than they estimated, and they might have to pay part of the grant back.
Many retailers are uncertain what the future will hold. They feel customers have a lot on their minds — they are thinking of COVID-19, and not about shopping. Consumers don’t know what’s going to happen with their jobs, some are using disposable income for basics. We’ve heard repeatedly that retailers think they can hold on through December, but they aren’t sure if they will still be in business in 2021. One retailer told us that after the first of the year, she’s going to close her downtown Portsmouth business during the week for the month of January, and just open on weekends. She’ll need to lay off five employees, and just run the business with family members.
Retailers need help for 2021 and beyond. More stimulus money and a vaccine are things that can get them through this tumultuous period.
The New Hampshire Retail Association is a statewide, nonprofit trade association representing over 700 businesses, from large chains to small independent retailers.
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