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Online Sales Keep Small Businesses Afloat but Pandemic Losses Are Insurmountable
By Joe Connolly and Neil A. Carousso
NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — Increases in online sales are not covering losses suffered in the coronavirus pandemic for many small retailers, but it is allowing them to stay afloat during the unprecedented holidays as hospitalizations and deaths due to the virus surge.
“I’m happy to report we’re surviving,” Jennifer Bergman of West Side Kids said on the WCBS Small Business Spotlight, sponsored by BNB Bank.
Bergman’s Upper West Side toy store is in the midst of their annual busy season, but overall sales are down about 50 percent. Her busiest day of 2020 was December 9 – the day before Hanukkah.
“Our online sales have never generated enough business for me to invest in expanding that so it’s always been a real catch-22,” she explained.
Bergman is not alone. Many small businesses are struggling to develop a profitable e-commerce strategy. Those who had one in place before March were best positioned to pivot amid shutdowns, but still, it is difficult to compete with online retail giants, namely Amazon and Wal-Mart.
“It costs us a lot more to process online orders and we’re going in early and we’re staying late to get them all done,” she said.
Tom Geniesse owns Bottlerocket Wine & Spirit in the Flatiron District. He had more than a head start on his e-commerce; he owns several patents on the display of his website, which shows different pairings of wines that go well with various meals.
“The customer-centric focus is on giving people choices that map to their needs,” he told WCBS 880. “By doing that, we give people an opportunity to make better decisions when they’re making a bottle of wine.”
Geniesse is educating his customers virtually. Before opening the doors to his wine shop in 2003 with the goal of making wine more accessible to the average consumer, he owned an e-learning business company named Quisic from 1996-2001. That experience is paying dividends 19 years later.
He told Joe Connolly and Neil A. Carousso he has put Bottlerocket Wine & Spirit on numerous e-commerce platforms, including Instacart, Grubhub and other niche websites. That exposure and marketing has given him a 25 percent bump in online sales, but it does not make up for Geniesse’s overall sales losses in the pandemic. His challenge now is finding new customers who have fled Manhattan.
“People that can work remotely have continued to work remotely and residential folks in Flatiron tend to be affluent, tend to have second homes outside of the city and many of those people have moved out in March and have remained away,” said Geniesse, continuing, “We’ve really had to be entrepreneurial in finding customers that are new customers, reach to a broader audience in the city and find the people that are here and working here and living here.”
He told WCBS 880 he believes the pandemic is an inflection point on the viability of local businesses’ e-commerce sales operations.
“I do think that e-commerce has been on a 20-year trend, increasing online sales for businesses everywhere and this pandemic has hurdled us forward about 10 years in that trajectory,” said Geniesse. “We’ve always been online, we’ve always had an e-commerce platform, but I think what this has shown us is that this is critically important for us to keep our efforts focused on e-commerce and continue to grow in that way.”
Hear ideas on how to find new customers online and learn about the changing landscape of e-commerce on the WCBS Small Business Spotlight Podcast on the RADIO.COM app or on the media player above.
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FDA Authorizes Pfizer’s COVID-19 Vaccine
NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — The U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted emergency use authorization of Pfizer and BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine. WCBS 880 anchor Lynda Lopez examines the national roll out and talks with a member of President-elect Joe Biden’s COVID-19 advisory board about how shots will be distributed in communities of color.
https://omny.fm/shows/880-weekly-rewind/the-weekly-rewind-12-10-20
Listen back to The 880 Weekly Rewind, including the Week In Sound as heard on WCBS Newsradio 880, produced by Neil A. Carousso, on the media player above.
You can listen to The 880 Weekly Rewind with Lynda Lopez Friday nights at 7 PM ET for a deeper understanding of the top local, national and international stories of the week, featuring interviews with newsmakers and the Week/Month In Sound audio file.
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Bronx Native Develops Highly Effective Mask to Slow Community Spread of COVID-19
By Neil A. Carousso
NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — Not all masks provide equal protection.
Serial entrepreneur Jonathan Malveaux developed the Nano Air Mask at the outset of the pandemic as a way to bring a quality mask that blocks most viral particles to the general public. It is made using nanofiber technology.
“Whether you’re using a gaiter or some other cloth material, these very microscopic-size particles will get through it,” he explained.
Malveaux, whose mother and step-mother are nurses, realized the importance of masks in protecting oneself and others early in the pandemic even before public officials and the Centers for Disease Control and Protection advised Americans to wear masks to slow transmission.
“We just sprung into action. It was like survival mode,” he told WCBS 880’s Neil A. Carousso, recalling walking around the South Bronx neighborhood where he was raised wearing a mask before it became required by state law on public transportation and in establishments.
If there was more comfortable and breathable mask that provided strong protection against COVID-19, would you wear it? @NeilACarousso reports on the Nano Air Mask. https://t.co/3wmYsMWXSj pic.twitter.com/uANv7Zfii5
— WCBS 880 (@wcbs880) December 10, 2020
Florida Atlantic University researchers compared the Nano Air Mask with a cloth mask and summer face mask on mannequins in a visual cough simulation of how respiratory droplets would seep through a mask, potentially infecting those nearby with COVID-19. They found the Nano Air Mask best reduced how far droplets travel. Utah-based Nelson Labs performed an independent study and found it to be roughly 98 percent effective in filtering particles.
“The sort of issue that we all have to be focused on as well is leakage,” said Malveaux of how viral particles could penetrate the sides of the mask.
He leads a small team that manufactures the Nano Air Mask in Long Beach, CA; they are ramping up production as COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths soar nationwide. They are also working on a “pro version” for healthcare professionals similar to an N95 respirator, which is FDA-approved, featuring two straps that go around one’s head to reduce “leakage.”
“We’re really constantly innovating to make sure that we are offering exactly what (our customers) want,” Malveaux said. “The one thing that we won’t compromise on is the quality.”
He is perfecting the Nano Air Mask and will come out with a black colored version soon after numerous inquiries from his customers. Currently, the masks are only available in white. It costs $2.75 down from the original price of $4.50.
Malveaux looks forward to the day when we do not have to wear masks, but right now, his goal is universal mask compliance, which epidemiologists say is the key to reducing the risk of COVID-19 infection. He could envision people going out in public and attending events next year while wearing a high quality mask that will maintain a low transmission rate.
“We supply to lots of professional sports teams, athletes and owners across most major sports, which is fantastic; they have the resources to do the diligence quite quickly,” he said, adding, “Given how we grew up and what we were seeing – I grew up in the South Bronx – we wanted to not only do what would work for them, but also was affordable and would actually try to help make a difference.”
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Flatiron District Businesses Brace for Second Wave of COVID-19
By Neil A. Carousso
NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — The Flatiron District – world-famous for being a vibrant technology hub, higher education center and home to restaurants, retail and tourism – is now bracing for a surge in COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations that could lead to industry shutdowns as a measure to help quell the spread.
James Mettham, executive director of the Flatiron/23rd Street Partnership, told Joe Connolly and Neil A. Carousso on the WCBS Small Business Spotlight, sponsored by BNB Bank, that a second shutdown without “true relief” in the form of forgivable federal government loans or grants, which would need to passed by Congress, would stifle business recovery.
The Business Improvement District says 75 percent of ground-floor food, retail and services businesses have reopened or never shutdown, deemed essential, in the spring. They had to pivot in March to survive.
Small businesses that already had an e-commerce platform are best positioned to stay afloat; others are catching up and struggling to compete with Amazon, Wal-Mart and other large companies that have seen sales accelerate in the pandemic. Amazon’s sales are up 53 percent while Wal-Mart, with a growing e-commerce site, has seen sales rise 45 percent.
Mettham told WCBS 880 some food businesses in the Flatiron District have had success through so-called “re-targeting.”
“It’s been really trying to push their goods towards local residents – folks that they can rely on being in the neighborhood and familiar with their business,” he explained.
Loyalty initiatives have also helped stores attract customers who want to support their local businesses.
Many, though, say commercial rent prices must come down for businesses to survive and new businesses to thrive.
“Landlords and tenants both understand that a vibrant neighborhood that’s occupied with a mix of uses ranging with office workers, hospitality, visitors (and) students is all in the best interest of everyone,” Mettham said.
He told Connolly and Carousso several new restaurants have taken advantage of reduced entry costs and opened their doors in the Flatiron District. The BID veteran believes the two sides will negotiate and come to an agreement because the local economy depends on it; the pandemic has underscored how one industry impacts the other in a connected economy like New York.
Before joining the Flatiron District/23rd Street Partnership, Mettham served as managing director of finance and operations at the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership. He was also assistant commissioner of the New York City Department of Small Business Services (SBS) Neighborhood Development Division and executive director of SBS’ Business Improvement District Program.
On the WCBS Small Business Spotlight, Mettham talks about the Flatiron District with reverence of its history and promise for a post-pandemic city. He sees new technology companies entering the previously bustling neighborhood, which he believes is reminiscent of the tech boom in the 1990s in Manhattan South, which earned it the moniker “Silicon Alley.”
“It’s been very both resilient and flexible and innovative in its character over the years,” Mettham said, continuing, “Whether it’s been from the photography industry, the table top industry, original Silicon Alley 20 years ago, it’s always been able to build on its successes, reinvent itself and I don’t think this is going to require a full reinvention.”
Hear more about the new businesses opening in the Flatiron District and how existing ones are bracing for the second wave of the pandemic on the WCBS Small Business Spotlight Podcast on the RADIO.COM app or on the media player above.
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Week In Sound: ‘COVID Hell’
NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — Promise of a COVID-19 vaccine provided hope this week while infections, hospitalizations and deaths are surging nationwide.
https://omny.fm/shows/880-weekly-rewind/week-in-sound-covid-hell
Listen back to the Week In Sound as heard on WCBS Newsradio 880, produced by Neil A. Carousso, on the media player above.
You can listen to The 880 Weekly Rewind with Lynda Lopez Friday nights at 7 PM ET for a deeper understanding of the top local, national and international stories of the week, featuring interviews with newsmakers and the Week/Month In Sound audio file.
