Ever since COVID has hit in late 2019 – early 2020, people have been starting to find new things to do during the quarantines since everybody is staying home. This means that new businesses have been hitting the industry everyday. With more and more people, especially teens, creating small businesses, there have been many delays and more people selling product wholesale. 

Deviny Luna and Kayla Alia are both small business owners who make resin creations. Many people love resin creations so creating a business doing it is very popular and can appeal to many customers. On the other hand, since so many people are doing this type of business, it is getting harder and harder to get supplies.

Alia states, “Everything has been so much harder to get because things go out of stock so fast!”

Luna talks about how, she hasn’t had too hard of a time as she mainly shops on Amazon, however, there are some items she does have trouble finding consistently so she tries to call a store ahead of time to ensure it’s there and to limit her time at the store.

Young businesses have to kind of work around the system and find their own way around getting supplies and more customers since many people are creating similar businesses like cosmetic businesses. As a small business in the beauty industry, the thing entrepreneurs would start with is usually lipgloss and false lashes because they can easily make their own lip gloss at home and then buy lashes through a wholesale manufacturer. 

Since COVID started, both Luna and Alia have been getting more sales.

Luna states, “I would say it’s affected my business in a positive way! A lot of people are shopping online to follow social distancing guidelines and that’s really helped a small online business like mine! I only started once Covid happened but since then I’ve been very blessed and thankful to receive many orders!”

Online shopping is how people have been getting all of their merchandise whether its food, clothes, or just random things that they want for themselves.

Everybody who has tried to ship something or receive a package that was shipped has most likely experienced a delay due to so many packages being shipped and not just during the holiday season. COVID is disrupting shipping around the world causing businesses to re-evaluate their strategies. During quarantine, nothing was allowed to be shipped overseas because they were scared that COVID could attach to the package and spread to those who open it and have any contact with it.

Since countries have slowly started controlling Covid, shipping has been getting better and Alia, someone who ships items almost daily says, “I do ship items, but I have only had one issue with shipping because of Covid, local shipping usually takes 2-3 days and international shipping takes around 4-5 days which still isn’t bad.”

On the other hand, Luna, who also ships items, mentions how “It has had its tough moments with delays and items getting lost in the mail. It’s hard when that happens because it’s not the owners or the buyer’s fault, yet the owner has to take the hit of remaking and shipping the item.”

There is really no way to tell if a customer is going to get their order or not but even with COVID not in place, missing packages could happen at any time anywhere.

Small businesses are being created every day and are continuing to grow, especially during these hard times. COVID has had its ups and downs but for the most part, it has been helping small businesses by getting more people on the internet and online shopping.