LI Florist Talks Coronavirus: 'It Beats You Up A Little Bit'
LONG ISLAND, NY — The coronavirus outbreak has challenged many small business owners across Long Island and beyond to adapt to an ever-evolving rule-set. A New York mandate forced the closure of in-store service, limiting businesses to takeout or delivery. Florists are among those affected.
Peter McBride, 50, owns three flower shops on Long Island: The Flower Basket in Northport, Towers Flowers in North Babylon and Feldis Florist in Merrick. The triad of stores are all temporarily closed to the public. Instead, the shops have been relying on web and phone orders, causing a challenge to stay financially afloat. McBride considers himself an optimistic and upbeat person but said he's missing the same level of exuberance from his youth.
"We’ve been through some interesting times: 9/11, the Great Recession, and now [the coronavirus]," he told Patch. "It beats you up a little bit. On the other side of this, if we can find a way to see some positive growth and see that there’s a way to be a meaningful, profitable business, I think that’s enough to make business owners excited."
When the virus first forced the shops to close, McBride said he ran a solo act for a couple of weeks. He would take the orders, fill them and then make the delivery. He'd start at 6 a.m., return home between 8 or 9 p.m., sleep for a few hours and then start the cycle over. McBride has since used four to six employees on a rolling basis to fulfill orders, but that's still down from the usual 21 workers, including himself. Nominal staff was added to support the work the flower shops are allowed to do within the guidelines, he said.
The florist was told he could service essential businesses, and said his shops have contracts with many funeral homes on Long Island. Traditional wakes, however, have become no more, according to McBride. They've been replaced with short events with very few people for the time being.
"At this point, a significant amount of our business has been helping [funeral homes], McBride said. "It’s really been overwhelming how much of it has been sympathy work at people’s homes."
McBride is confident his stores will survive the coronavirus. However, he said he doesn't have a crystal ball to show how the businesses will look.
"Do I think we’re going to be around five years from now? I’m 100 percent positive we’ll be around," he said. "But will we look the same? Will our services look exactly the same? I don’t think that they will. When you go through something like this, a lot of businesses realize there are parts of the model of your business that probably need to change going forward to meet the financial challenges."
McBride believes there will be an uptick in flowers sold with Mother's Day coming up Sunday. However, he predicted an income distribution shift from small businesses to big businesses due to the state mandate preventing merchants from operating at full strength.
"While small businesses are being asked to stay home, Amazon is operating at full capacity," he said. "In our industry, 1-800-Flowers and other dot-com driven national companies are seeing record sales. Some of them have reported they’re anticipating that their Mother’s Day year over year sales are going to double. We are not going to double. We don’t have the bandwidth, the personnel or the physical capability of doubling."
This article originally appeared on the Northport Patch
