The CEO of the Lethbridge and District Chamber of Commerce says there are a number of factors impacting local businesses, including supply chain issues that were heightened because of the postal strike during the holiday season.
Cyndi Crane says the strike played a role in consumers helped lead consumers back to sites such as Amazon, which make next day deliveries, which left businesses with stock left over.
With this extra stock, the challenge coming into the new year for retail stores is getting people back out shopping, especially with Valentine’s Day right around the corner.
“It’s that old stock sometimes that just you can’t get rid of, that’s causing a lot of issues,” Crane says.
The strain was felt not just by small businesses that were retail-based but also by those businesses that were collecting money for work done whose checks were in the mail.
“The Chamber of Commerce still gets a lot of their membership payments, for example, via check and when [even though we] couldn’t get our money, we still have to pay our bills. So sometimes that creates that cash flow challenge,” Crane says. “So that cash flow challenge, I think, is a big issue.”
Crane says businesses in Lethbridge’s downtown area have all those factors, plus the unique factors of being downtown. She says sometimes the lure of downtown is wanting to be part of reinvigorating the neighbourhood, but the traffic in the area is different because she says “it’s still bank heavy, accountants, lawyers”. Along with being heavy on industry spots, she adds people don’t stop to window shop like they used to so people become comfortable in their routine and being on their phone.
“There’s some of those well-known shops, those that always have that traditional person coming in the door and they’re going there for their weekly coffee or their weekly visit at the bookstore,” Crane says. “So I think it’s really challenged organizations to [think about] how do we get people so they’re not looking online? How do we get them back to that traditional window shopping, so they know what businesses are around, whether it’s downtown, on the west side, or on the far south side.”
She adds whether or not people want to talk about it other factors include the weather and construction.
“The construction that has been happening around downtown, whether it’s the roads being ripped up or the bike lanes or the snow being shovelled or the snow not being shovelled, that creates chaos. So when the weather’s miserable, people want to stay home.”
Crane says one of the biggest times you see business go down for businesses is when the weather is not good and road conditions aren’t the best.
