10 Strategies For Small Businesses To Stay Relevant During Covid-19

It’s no question that small businesses are bearing the brunt of the economic collapse caused by Covid-19. As a small business owner myself, my heart truly aches for the founders who have poured their heart and soul into their businesses, only to have all of their hard earned growth and future plans flipped seemingly overnight.

But as scary and disheartening as this chaos feels, we will get through this — we always do. Times like these offer an incredibly unique perspective — a time to step back, analyze your business and yourself, and come out stronger on the other side.

Because we work closely with many different e-commerce businesses and are intimately connected in this community, we have gained some perspective on strategy for surviving Coronavirus times — hopefully some of these tips will help your business weather this storm, too.

1. Be kind to yourself. Your health, and the health of your loved ones comes first, and so does the health and safety of the greater community. Listen to your body and allow yourself to rest and take a break when you need to take a break. You’ll be much more productive in the long run!
2. Be flexible. As founders, we’re often blind to other opportunities — we’re so focused on our core mission that it’s hard to step back and see other perspectives. Most of the time this is a good thing! It fuels our passion and drives success. But right now the market demands flexibility. This is a (*hopefully*) once in a lifetime shift in perspective. The businesses who survive will be nimble and open, ready to tackle new windows of opportunity as they appear.
3. Connect to your customers. Right now, the world is truly craving authentic human connection. Your customers want to hear from you — the real you. They want to connect with you and share in this tragedy with you. Let them in on your journey. Tell them how they can help. It will go a lot farther than a simple “stay safe and wash your hands!”
4. Give back if you’re able. This situation is unique in that it truly impacts everyone around the globe. Everyone is hurting right now, so be a light in the darkness. Plus, your offer to help will break through the noise much easier than simple well-wishes. It doesn’t always have to be monetary — you can also give time and expertise. At Uppercase, we’re giving away one brand new Shopify website to a brick-and-mortar store trying to move their business quickly online (sign up here!). Get creative about what you can offer!
5. Understand that cash is king. With uncertainty in global markets and physical businesses shuddering, people are turning online. Move your inventory (even by introducing a sale) to allow you to be more flexible as a business.
6. Don’t slow down. It’s absolutely the wrong time for small businesses to take their foot off of the accelerator. While it’s incredibly tempting to scale back on all fronts to be as conservative as possible, it won’t help you in the long run. If you go dark, you risk becoming irrelevant, and that is truly something that you may not recover from. Scale back some, but keep moving forward. On the bright side, it’s never been cheaper to reach your customers. With so many people online, CPMs on platforms like Facebook and Instagram are more affordable than ever.
7. Build a waitlist. Another unfortunate side effect of Covid-19 is that supply chains are disrupted. If you’re low on inventory, create a waitlist. Collecting a list of interested customers now sure as hell beats having to start from scratch when the virus is gone.
8. Better yet, pre-sale. Discount your best-selling sold-out products by 10% and offer customers the opportunity to purchase early. This enables you to still have cash flow, and builds your customer base at the same time! (And if you don’t know how to enable this feature on your site, talk to us…we’d be happy to help :))
9. Test new methodologies. This is a great time to run a few a/b tests with your customers. You have more time to analyze results, and CPMs are lower than ever, making it more affordable to test new methodologies that may improve your business.
10. Clean house. Been thinking of re-doing your website? Now is the time. Always wanted to launch a business Instagram? Do it! (we are :)) Since everything is moving a bit slower, use this pause to take inventory of your current systems. Get your business ready for the post-coronavirus era. Build now for that bright, bright future.

Let us know your tips as well! Tell us your stories, let us know how you’ve been coping, and share how we can help. ….And keep washing your hands :)