We all know that the new normal is actually a more communist normal. But with this change, we have found that the state is gaining more control because we are now all shopping online and being tracked 100% of the time. This is an amazing way to control a populous and with the fact that our only options by law in many cases are e-commerce, it is working. Personally, this has led our company is fundamentally changing due to the pandemic. It is simple, our state shut down our storefront. The fact that we are a small retailer means we are not safe enough to have people walk into our business and yet the giant big box store next to us that holds thousands of more people is safe. I am most definitely in a lawsuit with the state for pandering to a company that simply brings in more tax dollars than my business does. But that is the main reasoning why we are changing our company to be an eCommerce-based company. We have had to learn a whole lot of things in order to survive in an anti-business economy. One of the biggest lessons we have had to learn was to shop in the correct places for our shipping supplies. Because if you shop the wrong place you may be out of business soon.
We knew things had to change in order to survive the unconstitutional totalitarian regulations. This all started with the simple fact that we are going to have to sell our items online instead of in a store. With no more foot traffic, we knew we would all be on government assistance quickly if we didn't make a profit. That means we are changing from simply bagging our items or letting people who want to be environmentally friendly simply carry their items out. Instead, now we have to use cardboard boxes or bags. So in order to stay competitive, we had to make sure we were getting these items at the best cost. It is really hard to compete with giant companies who are ordering these in massive quantities and sending them to customers at a fraction of the cost of what the average person can buy them for.
We all know that the quick way is Amazon. The next process we went through was the one everyone goes to. We started shopping on Amazon and pricing out what we could do with prime shipping. We like to be able to get backups for products fast. We saw prices went down about 10 to 20% but for those items, we also ended up with more than prime shipping. Most of it was actually 2-week shipping for large quantities. This means we have to buy much more than we need to ensure we don't run out. Because restocking is simply more complicated and not nearly as consistent.
Luckily, we got wise and went to the source and found real large packaging supplies stores. This was where we found cardboard boxes at their best prices and also bags too. We learned that we could buy in bulk and cut down the cost by another 20% on top of Amazon prices. Shipping took longer, but we were able to buy more for a much-discounted price and that was going to help us stay truly competitive. So be wise and shop the right locations this year.
