Opinion 2 Piece

Local Business Matters

Hannah Kruzel

March 20, 2020

Many Victoria businesses have had to close their doors due to the recent bans of gatherings of 50 people or more and to keep up with following safe social distancing practices with their customers.

More people are working from home, self-isolating or in quarantine and want to avoid large gathering areas like groceries stores. This has brought an increase to online purchases however many of them the larger organizations like Amazon and Walmart, not local businesses.

Several businesses across Victoria will lose at least 50% of their revenue due to the cruise ship ban that is currently in effect until July 1, 2020, and a portion of the other 50% that is from locals because of COVID-19. With the lack of customers some have had to lay off staff, cut their hours or close their doors entirely, and it is unknown what the future may hold for our smaller businesses.

Will the larger organizations remain open with COVID-19? Indefinitely. They are already multi-million-dollar corporations and have the ability to offer more than most places, like online orders, and deliveries. However, purchasing from these bigger companies does not have a positive effect on our local economy but there are ways we can help.

Victoria businesses like Fol Epi Bakery, Violette Boutique and Bernstein & Gold are offering alternative options for customers to still get the things that they want in a variety of different ways.

Fol Epi is offering window service for their baked goods but also offer the ability to pick up basic groceries like milk, eggs, cold sandwiches, and soups from them while maintaining a safe social distance between their staff and customers.

Violette Boutique is offering online purchasing for customers while their doors are closed to the public to ensure that their customers can be able to order and receive their items at a timely manner, while also offering free shipping within Canada.  

Bernstein & Gold is continuing to offer online purchasing with free shipping within Canada as well as ordering ahead to pick up skincare and orders in store during designated times and days.

Local businesses are being flexible to assist and come up with effective ways to still serve their loyal and growing community of customers so while you maybe are purchasing from larger companies like Amazon or Walmart out of convenience there is no better time to help our local economy and shop with local businesses.

More than ever they need help from customers, so that when the time comes where we can walk care-free amongst each other again they will be able to open their doors to the public again and remain open for a long time.

Not only are you supporting these local businesses, but the individuals who work there, the owners of the business, the relationships that have been built within our community with these businesses. It also helps to keep our city original and unique while shaping the way that tourists and other cities see us. That money is going into shaping our community.

Next time that you think about buying something from a big corporation, think about how much more it could benefit a local business in your community and chose local over global.

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