2020 has been a year full of uncertainty. With nationwide closures and other shutdowns, it has been quite difficult for businesses to sell their products. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, many businesses have produced advertisements that address what the world is going through this year. Since the early days of March, waves of both temporary and permanent business closings have pushed local businesses to gear their products towards people that are working from home, and a lot of these people happen to be college students. With days full of ZOOM Calls, food delivery apps, and coming up with new pastimes, local businesses such as local bars and boutique shops have been trying to sell their products in a new way. Local Businesses rely on physical interactions to sell products, and advertise their storefronts with large promotions that require big gatherings. Record Shops host rock shows, Smoke Shops host other similar events, and local dive bars have the classic happy hours. The College Bars rely on students going to class full time, which is not the case right now. With Texas still in the middle of a shutdown, there’s no telling what is next.
One of the most interesting things I have seen come out of this pandemic is the creativity that is being shown by local businesses. An example of this is the local Bar and Grill, Cool Beans, which is located in the same town as the University of North Texas in Denton. Cool Beans has multiple creative names for cocktails. Names include the Almost Adios, Sour Patch, and many more. To keep their business afloat, Beans began to sell milk jugs of these pitchers to people that would walk up to the door where students would normally wait in line to get into the beloved Denton Staple. Many other establishments have had to do similar things to keep afloat, and since the Texas bar closures still loom, the local businesses have to scrounge for every dollar. This is true for all businesses that are fed by people showing up at the door. Texas record store businesses such as Mad World Records, Good Records, and Forever Young Records have created large communities by inviting bands to play on their premises. This is unfortunately not as possible during a pandemic, thus causing sales to suffer. This pattern will surely continue in the coming months, with livelihoods being lost.
As we enter the latter quarter of 2020, there is no telling what will happen in terms of getting back to the way things were before. The way people work has changed and the way people shop and make purchases has changed. Over the spring and summer months, we were living in a digital world. This is unfortunately still the case for the most part. We had to make big purchasing decisions with little human interaction, and it seems it will be this way for quite a while. There’s no one way to describe how we have had to live this year, and the small businesses who have lost their loyal customers due to displacement and sickness will be ones that lose the most during these times. When things hopefully remedy next year, there will be a lot of things to learn from this. The main thing I will take away from this is that local businesses are something that is always worthy of our support. There are many businesses that could use all the support we can give, and they are just down the street from corporate chains.