How are our clients coping with the COVID-19 pandemic?
Check out a few creative ways they are keeping their business afloat!
The Possibilities are Endless.
Many small businesses in the Fox Valley area as well as across America are struggling to survive, stay afloat, temporarily lay off or furlough employees. These decisions are a tough and heart-wrenching decision for small business owners, mainly because small businesses often treated their employees as an extended family. Business owners developed and instilled opportunity, trust, support, and discipline into their employees. The size of the company allows each employee to be a vital team member to the success of a company.
Luckily, the newly passed Cares act provides a provision that allows businesses to take out loans to protect and secure payroll employees and, in some cases, can be converted to a grant.
With all the chaos around us, some of our clients compelled to seek other creative means and resources to prevail in such unthinkable financial reality.
#TeamTredrea ~ Ana, Kiel, Owen & Milo
Buy Local. Sell Local.
Support Your Favorite Shop.
“Spots on the Fox was an idea we conceived a few years ago, but it was put on the backburner while my wife Ana and I talked about starting a family. With our now almost one-year-old—and as we sit in the midst of a global pandemic—we felt the need to revisit the idea.
Spots on the Fox definitely has evolved as we have watched small business owners in our community navigate these times—unprecedented in our lifetime—and our hearts go out to them in their struggles. With businesses having to adapt and grow their online presence to survive, we felt it was the perfect time to join the effort of keeping our small local businesses alive. After all, these entrepreneurs are the backbone of this country.
Our goal is to create a centralized online marketplace for the businesses in our surrounding communities. The desire is to have all of the area’s local businesses in one location so community members can still shop locally, but do it conveniently from their home. The need came from our experience during this quarantine; with my wife being immunocompromised as a Type 1 diabetic, we just didn’t feel comfortable physically going into stores. We knew we needed to find a way to continue our day to day consumer activities, and that’s what pushed our idea forward.
Knowing that many people feel uncomfortable going into stores right now—and who knows how long into the future—we believe this is the best way that we can all support each other, especially as the weather cools down and it’s harder to get outside. Spots on the Fox makes it safe and easy to shop your favorite local stores and check out with purchases from all of them with one transaction.
Spots on the Fox has cut out the middleman, so 100% of the sale goes directly to the vendor, minus a minimal processing fee paid to Stripe. Vendors get their own storefront inside our marketplace. They can add their logo and business information along with an unlimited number of products—all for just one low monthly membership fee. The vendors handle their own shipping and/or delivery, which keeps things simple and easy for everyone. We also wanted to take it one step further and create a deeper network within our community by making a referral program for active businesses to invite other businesses to join. How cool is that?! All of us working together, and benefiting from each other.“
Interested in joining our community marketplace? Check out the Vendor Benefits!
– Kiel & Ana of Spots On The FOX
See what Harvey's Tales has done!
“We closed our store to foot traffic on March 17th as concern for our employees and customers’ health and safety was growing. It was a tough decision as we wanted people to still have books and other diversions, but we felt the right decision. We quickly decided to implement curbside pick up and told customers to just call or email the store and we would process their requests and deliver their purchases to their car as they pulled up. We could only do that for a couple of days before the Shelter in Place order was enforced, and as a non-essential business, we had to stop the curbside delivery.
Once again we had to pivot! We don’t have an online presence for purchasing books and without the expertise to create one quickly, we ordered some shipping supplies, a postage meter and signed up for stamps.com and decided we could ship out orders. Currently, we go to the store Monday thru Thursday from 10 to 1 and Chuck and I, along with one of our other employees (we asked two of our employees to help us on alternating days so there are no more than 3 people in the store at once), take the phone and email orders, process payment and prepare the books for shipping. We will also deliver some orders to Geneva, St Charles and Batavia for no cost and without contact – we leave it on the doorstep.
Even though we are deemed non-essential, we feel books and other diversions are essential during this time and we are happy we’ve been able to figure out a safe way to continue to provide those items!”
– Roxanne & Chuck Osborne of Harveys Tales
See what Pinot's Palette has done!
“Pinot’s Palette of St. Charles is helping support the community during this scary time in many different ways. We are offering virtual classes and self-guided take home kits to help provide creative outlets for relieving stress. Kits are pre-purchased online and then picked up at the studio on Friday afternoons (via non-contact curbside delivery).
Pinot’s Palette is supporting local charities with gift certificates for future classes that can be auctioned or raffled at virtual charitable fund raising events.
And, we are hoping to host a blood drive by partnering with the American Red Cross. Blood donations are at an all-time low due to blood drive events being canceled at business locations that are closed.
The American Red Cross is taking extra precautions to ensure all blood drives are safe for the donors and the staff working the event. We are in the early stages of the development of the blood drive and hope to be hosting it at the studio in July.
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