For better or worse, how has remote work impacted your business? 🤔

[isabelle]

Hey Seller Community ✨

In the last 2+ years, many businesses have begun to allow employees to work from home and/or remotely. This week we're wondering...

For better or worse, how has remote work impacted your business?

⬇️ Reply below! ⬇️

[Candlestore]

Remote work for retail does not exist.  You can not have employees take a sale of a physical item from home when it is sold in a store.  This is also true for production of our Candles, all the supplies and materials to manufacture our candles are at our retail store so there is no Remote work for us.

Now dealing with people that work remotely is sometimes a PITA!!!  Some do not answer the phone or do not have all the information, others ask us to wait because their kids or dogs etc are loud in the background, and a 5 min call to order XYZ takes 20 or 30 minutes because we get the explanation sorry about that but kids are playing video games, dog saw a cat etc.  I also love the ones when I use to call do you have XYZ in stock, hang on and in 2 minutes they would say yes, now its a day or two later and then its in stock, I place the order and get notified its OUT OF STOCK.  Because when they looked it was in stock but till they got home and remembered to call me or I call them back it could have sold.  

Now there are certain jobs that can be done remotely, Insurance Agents, Sales people, online sales, but then their are certain Jobs and Positions that should never be done Remotely and can not be done remotely but everyone wants that now.  My brother years ago turned down a pay Raise, and asked to to do his work from home as a Scheduler for a trucking company.  That worked out since his position was all internal to the company he worked for.  Even when he worked there physically he did not have much human interaction, everything was emailed to and from him.

So do not take this wrong, but there are some positions that can be done remotely but then again there are some that should not be even tried to do remotely.  Some of these workers that do the remote work do not give 100% to their position and get easily distracted at home.  Not to say this would not happen at a physical location also but they have less personal distractions.

[Daman877]

doesnt really affect what i do. My work cant be done remotely.

[TCSlaguna]

The last two years has seen a lot of improvements in remote work tools. Square is amazing because as Operations Manager I can do so much back end work from inputting purchase order, updating categories, running reports and updating our Square Online site remotely. When needed, we hold quick staff meetings over Google Meet. I can troubleshoot any issues on our Square Stands using Apple's Shareplay. We also share important work files over Google Drive. 

I definitely think it is important to be present in the store. But remote tools have allowed me to access information, communicate with employees and update store procedures anytime/anywhere. 

[Doran]

Remote working of other companies has really helped my business.  More people are out and about in town and end up wandering into my store.  They have more time for facials and browsing which ends up having a positive impact on my shop.  I noticed when a bunch of Bay Area businesses went back to the office sales and appointments slumped here. 

[JUYBoutique20]

When people were remote working, I was only online.  I didn't open up my storefront until June of last year and everyone was back to work here.  I can't say I really saw an impact because people were shopping online regularly with me.  I did have an increase when we opened the storefront though. 

[PartyManiaMD]

From a business point of view it's shifted how people celebrate. One of the biggest challenges is getting people into the store because if they're working from home they're most likely just going to shop from home. It's hard to convince people to support local businesses if they're no longer local and walking by every day. We've adjusted by offering online ordering and curbside, however whether that's enough is still to be determined, you lose a lot of suggestive selling ability online.

[doc_choc]

Remote working from our business didn’t occur. It’s too hands on a business from a manufacturing and retail perspective to operate remotely both at our factory and in store. We have two stores in two totally different locations. Remote working in Oxford absolutely destroyed sales in our inner city store. 75% of Oxford city centre is owned by the university so when the offices and uni shutdown it was like tumble weed town. The uni has reopened but many of the offices are still closed in the science parks so it’s still pretty tough going there coupled with the cost of living challenges. The other store is out of town and because people ‘work more efficiently’ from home they only seem to have to do three days work per week, so we see a lot more people in this store as they have more leisure time. With the energy crisis hitting the UK I think we will see more people working from the office ‘less efficiently’ during the winter to save on the home heating bills.

[Greenmonkey65]

Our "Inventory Madam" works remotely. She began working in our store years ago but moved to Georgia, and we are in NC. We couldn't find a good fit to work in-store, so she works remotely. It worked very well for us. She has been remote now for over three years!

Fortunately, our store wasn't in an area that counted on daytime work traffic. We are more neighborhood oriented. So, during the pandemic and now, remote workers at home have been a positive for us. 

[BrainArtist]

I discovered it was too difficult for me and the students while teaching art classes remotely, so it helped when my state opened up again. Though remotely handling administrative efforts has always been the way my business runs, the money making part is physical and in person. Expansion is in the near future, and hiring employees for the first time will be part of that. I expect most of the prep and follow up to be remote, especially since employees will likely be serving different towns. I haven't checked into it yet, but now I'm curious if there's a clock in/out option for teams that don't use a Square register. If there isn't, add that to the development team list. There are plenty of us out here running mobile businesses.

[lasortedspizza]

Unfortunately in the Restaurant there's little to no remote working.  Though as a small business owner who worked from home originally it has been interesting to watch people who had normal 9-5 jobs at offices see how much your work can bleed into your personal time when you work remotely.  I don't think its healthy for a lot of people...

[MetroGallery]

As a gallery, in a downtown location along with the banks and other offices it has slowed the foot traffic by about 75% it also sped the closing of 5 banks within a 2 block radius of our gallery further reducing foot traffic. To combat the reduced foot traffic at our main gallery we are helping others open their own galleries using our name and art. Our inventory is one of the largest in the Midwest and we have enough to fully stock dozens of full size galleries. We have also started hanging art in other locations not art related. We have art hanging in 2 co-working spaces and have First Friday events at one of them along with a featured artist each month. We have also opened a gallery in a retirement community and we change the art in it every 3 months. You can't phone in art, you can only change the wall it is hanging on.

[Lovewell]

We bagan our business right when covid first shut the world down. For us many people couldn't go anywhere, so they came and got coffee. And as things began to open up again we started having people bring their work to the shop to do away from their home. Now we have people that come and do work in the shop on some days and grab coffee on their way to the office other days. I believe we are extremely fortunate to be in a business that is growing. People love coffee, they love tea, and many see it as a must have to start their day. We are able to fill that need in our community.

[ATBmemphis]

i'm a salon owner and hairstylist, i do have a website/online store however i rarely make online sells. i truly am lacking and need help marketing and securing sells. otherwise, working from home has not impacted my company. now, if we were forced back into "shelter in place" id be up a very ugly creek with no paddle.

[Anthem]

I thought remote work had helped the business. Felt like people were tired of being at home and getting out to spend time with a friend (we are a coffee shop). However, I'm finding business is growing much faster now that most are being called back to the office. Maybe getting out of the habit of being in the office all day has folks going stir-crazy so the leave the office to get away from people or connect with someone outside the office. Whatever is happening, I'm just glad they consider us their third place to be with those they want to spend time with.