By YOURI KEMP
Tribune Business Reporter
ykemp@tribunemedia.net
Bahamian retailers are divided between the “desperate need” to generate more sales by opening at the weekend and preventing the spread of COVID-19.
Herbert Marshall, general manager of Sell-All Electronics, told Tribune Business: “Opening up on weekends is desperately needed. That’s when most of our customers come in to shop on Friday and Saturday. This is also important for my workers, toom because some of them can’t come in to work to get paid, so they are missing out on this.”
Sell-All is missing out on at least 40 percent of its normal sales by not being open on Saturday. Mr Marshall argued that The Bahamas is “basically open now, so a few hours on Saturday won’t hurt at this time” given that the prime minister has moved to phase three of his five-phase economic re-opening plan.
However, Dr Hubert Minnis has largely maintained the weekend lockdowns and curfews with some minor modifications. This means that retailers and multiple other companies are unable to open at the weekend - the period when they traditionally generate the bulk of their weekly sales.
Mr Marshall, meanwhile, also expressed his frustration at the National Insurance Board (NIB) failing to pay his furloughed employees their unemployment benefit from March. He said this was hurting the workers, adding that that while the larger companies have been helping their employees sorted access benefits the smaller ones are being left out.
However, Trevor Davis, general manager of Quality Home Centre, said: “I will be very honest with you. I would prefer to be safe and worry about the business afterwards. In terms of how it [COVID-19 and the lockdowns] is affecting business, I have not sat down and crunched the numbers.
“But obviously it is going to affect the business because you won’t be able to be opened up the way you would like but, as said, to be honest with you I would prefer to focus on the health than just making money. We still have people trying to come into the store and not following the rules.
“We have people walk in to the store and take off the mask. You also have people being rude when you ask them to leave the mask on. Persons are still trying to enter the store with kids, knowing that kids are not allowed in the store.
“So from this aspect of it I would prefer to keep the health and safety of the patrons in mind than that of the financial aspect of it. Once the numbers of infected continue to go down I don’t have a problem with opening up every day. What is revenue if we are not here to enjoy it?”
Mr Davis said he is looking towards the Christmas season to see if he can recover what has been lost during the COVID-19 closure, but in the meantime he wants customers to keep their masks on at all times and stay safe.
A clothing retailer, who preferred to remain anonymous, said: “Not being open on the weekend is definitely affecting business. We can’t do anything about it right now but it is affecting us. Certain customers that would like to shop on Saturday can’t. I’m missing out on about 40 percent of revenue.”
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