When businesses have to work at a lower capacity?

[Teaching3bears]

if a business can only admit half (or less) the customers in order to accommodate social distancing, when they can take customers by appointment only, or only admit one customer at a time, when they have to employ an extra person to count people who come in and remind them to use hand sanitizer, or sanitize shopping carts or other things, when they have to spend extra money on cleaners, when they have to restrict their hours or invest in plexiglass dividers, when they can't have big sales or events that usually attract lots of customers and move lots of inventory, when less customers come because they are worried about the virus ... At what point is it just not profitable anymore? How long can businesses go on this way and still stay in business?

[fairfarmhand]

Who knows? My dds workplace is dealing with this. Their full capacity was at most 55 people. So cut in half as per guidelines in our area, that’s like 25ish people. They did have a few employees quit so that helped, but they just aren’t a able to give the hours they were before. Thankfully the place has been established for decades so I’m fairly certain the owner has no/low debt. I’d imagine if she was trying to pay off a business loan they might have to close.

 

they are doing decently though on takeout. Thanks 

[AmandaVT]

I think businesses can get creative and those that do will fare better than those that do not. Our local toy store has a great set up- customers call in their orders, pay over the phone and they put your goods in a bag labeled with your name. Knock on the door when you arrive, tell them your name and they put the bag on the porch. They've been posting to social media - pictures of new items, videos of the owner and employee playing with stuff, stacks of puzzles, etc. They've made it fun to shop locally and they are doing better than they did pre-covid. 

Restaurants have put up tents, created parklets in the street with tables and chairs, built take out windows. Some have begun offering "take out night" meals, where the restaurant will create all in one meals for families with rotating menus. 

[Tap]

It really depends on the company  and the amount of effort the owners want to put in. For a store with a physical inventory, if they can just break even on inventory already purchased, at least they aren't going backwards. There is a certain amount of 'If they buy from me....at least they aren't supporting my competitor'.  At the end of all of this, there will be some businesses that remain out of sheer determination....Others because the owners can't imagine any other life. They will sink a lot of personal money and sweat, to just keep a presence and hope to still be standing when it is all over. 

[Laura Corin]

Some businesses  can spread  their time. Our dog  groomer is a partnership of two people, but the space  is too small for them to share. So they no longer close two days a week and they work  evenings, so that they can take more  appointments. At this  time of year, the only extra expense  is lighting. 

[mathnerd]

Lots of barbers and beauty salons in neighboring counties moved their chairs outside to their parking lots and did brisk business while masked and maintaining distance. Now, they are all shut down because our cases have shot up alarmingly, but, it was one way for businesses to meet customer demand.

[Teaching3bears]

It's neat to hear alltheinnivative solutions.

[Carrie12345]

It’s definitely going to vary by business.
There’s zero ability to social distance inside my vet’s office, so they only allow pets inside. Techs bring them in and out.  It’s definitely an emotional burden in some cases. I watched techs bring a deceased dog back to the car next to me last week. I feel awful for the owner.  But pets are still getting the medical care they need.
Our local pottery painting place seems to be doing well with take home/drop off to fire kits.
Our local family-owned retail liquidator is big on social media and taking curbside orders that way.
Some of our restaurants are doing better than others. I can’t really stomach paying ten dollars for a take out burger, so we stick to the ones with more affordable (always or adapted to now) options.
 

[Bootsie]

It will really vary from business to business depending upon their division of costs between fixed costs and variable costs.  If the business can cover its variable costs (such as the cost of the item it is selling) and have at least some money left over to go toward fixed costs (rent, insurance, etc.), it makes sense to stay open in the short run.  Even though the company has a loss, it would be a smaller loss than if it had no revenue to go toward paying the fixed costs.  In the longer run, as the business can get out of some of the contracts of fixed costs, it may not make sense to remain open.  

I think we will start seeing a lot more disruptions to retail businesses beyond simply customer count.  I suspect inventory management is going to become trickier.  Supply chain problems are likely to develop; imports are down significantly; the dollar has dropped significantly which means it will be more expensive to purchase inventory from foreign sources.  In addition, I think businesses will find ordering inventory tricky.  They were left with a large spring/summer inventory on their shelves.  For example, graduation gifts are still sitting on the shelves.  How much "back-to-school" inventory should they order?  Christmas inventory?  Will people spend more decorating their homes?  Or, will a lack of Christmas parties significantly decrease their sells--does a clothing store significantly reduce its holiday party attire inventory?  Many retailers earn most of their profits during the last six weeks of the year; they have to be ordering inventory now for that season.  I think many are going to think it is too big of a risk to be ordering much.  If a business does not project big, profitable holiday sales it may just start looking at the most cost effective ways of closing. 

[Pippen]

6 hours ago, Carrie12345 said:

It’s definitely going to vary by business.
There’s zero ability to social distance inside my vet’s office, so they only allow pets inside. Techs bring them in and out.  It’s definitely an emotional burden in some cases. I watched techs bring a deceased dog back to the car next to me last week. I feel awful for the owner.  But pets are still getting the medical care they need.
Our local pottery painting place seems to be doing well with take home/drop off to fire kits.
Our local family-owned retail liquidator is big on social media and taking curbside orders that way.
Some of our restaurants are doing better than others. I can’t really stomach paying ten dollars for a take out burger, so we stick to the ones with more affordable (always or adapted to now) options.
 

I had a vet appointment for my cat this week. The techs did bring him in and back, and they left me an ipad so I could interact with the vet during the exam. It worked out great. 

[Bootsie]

When I went grocery shopping last night it struck me how the "seasonal" section of the store was almost non-existent.  Usually, this time of year that would be full of notebooks, paper, glue sticks, binders, lunch bags, backpacks, locker organizers, and all of the other back-to-school supplies.  It would have been bustling with lists of necessary supplies for all of the different grades and local schools.  People would have been frantically searching for 2 purple wide-ruled notebooks and 3 red pocketed folders.  There are no lists, no shoppers, and not really much more than the usual paper, pens, and crayons that the grocery store might have (but there are bottles and bottles of hand sanitizer).