Dozens of emails from our vendors have landed in my inbox over the past week stating how concerned they are about the impact of COVID-19 on independent retailers.  To be truthful, I am concerned about the impact of COVID-19 on my vendors – but I realize that keeping stores alive will help us both.

What can a vendor do to help? The first thing is to extend the terms on any outstanding invoices, if their cash flow allows.  I’m working hard to pay all our Net 30 invoices within terms, which is a challenge since our store is closed and our bookkeeper is not working. (Thank heavens for the copy of Quickbooks for Dummies I got from the library before it closed.) What relief it would be to get an email saying that I could relax – all invoices due within the next few weeks are now due June 1. A few of our vendors have done this, and we are very grateful.

Several companies have offered to drop ship items ordered through our website directly to our customers, allowing us to have at least a small variety of merchandise available while we’re closed.  Project Genius even put together two special assortments of puzzles and games that can be drop shipped.  You can see them on our store’s site, www.orangetreeimports.com. (That’s their Chroma Cube puzzle illustrating today’s blog.)

We are also grateful to companies like Corkcicle that are using their consumer site to benefit local retailers. Each of their wholesale accounts received a code as part of Corkcicle’s #supportlocal campaign, to be used by a customer when ordering directly from Corkcicle (shoppers can also search by zip code for a nearby retailer). They will be mailing retailers a check for part of the proceeds of each sale.  Toad&Co is a California-based outdoor clothing brand that is also supporting the shops that carry their line in this way, sharing 30% of the net revenue of full-priced products with their retailers. If other companies decide to follow suit, a credit on our next wholesale order would be a great reward, and would make it likely that we’d reorder when things get back to normal.

The drop ship and shared revenue ideas only work if the company’s warehouses (or fulfillment facilities) are open and still able to send out packages – and it may not be practical for those who haven’t done it before to set this up now.  But even though we haven’t received any orders yet, we are grateful to those vendors who are able to help us to keep up the appearance of still being able to serve our customers.  May the day come soon that we can do that in person!

Happy Retailing, 

Carol “Orange” Schroeder