How does your business look different now vs when you first started?

[tranguyen]

Happy Wednesday, everyone 🎉

For May, as we celebrate Small Business Month on the Seller Community, we will be sharing a Question of the Week that has been suggested by other sellers!

To start, let’s talk about how your business has grown! This week, we have a question from @JUYBoutique20: 

How does your business look different now vs when you first started?

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This week’s question is part of our Small Business Month celebration! Join this conversation and you’ll have the opportunity to earn a special achievement – a snazzy new badge for your community profile!*

 

 

*Badges will be rewarded periodically throughout May 2023. In order to earn the badge you must reply or comment on one or more Small Business Month 2023 posts between May 1 - May 31, 2023.

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Have you always wondered how other business owners handle slow sales? If you have a Question of the Week you'd like to ask the Seller Community, share it with us on this thread!

[sattvass]

That is a really cool share. Congrats on the growth! 

[wilks123]

I love this question and love reading about your success! I took over a biz that had been around for 32 years. They had 7 locations and ended up closing them all. A lot of that was due to employee theft - grrrr. BUT an opportunity to open it back up (after a short 20 months being closed)  was presented to me and I took it. I opened a store towards the end of the pandemic in Nov. 2020 in a tiny 600 sq foot brick and mortar. In March another opportunity presented itself to move the business to a gorgeous 1400 sq foot space in the best location in the area. Business has doubled since the move just a couple of months ago. It's been great!

[Helen]

Wow what a journey @wilks123! What industry is your business? Did you realize before you moved how big of an impact changing location would have? 

[monycharmoflove]

Yes it does it seems as if it is starting to slow down rather than grow

[Azdreamfactory]

We started the business this year and love square. We personally would like employee cards that are linked to our square checking so I am able to have them make purchases on my behalf 

[AngelWings]

I started Angel Wings & CT in my home for four years, consigned my wares for four more in two different locations while doing pop up shows to supplement, then had a very tiny brick-n-mortar for 2 years. 

I finally landed a storefront in a historic downtown and have been there 10 years and was able to buy the building a few years ago and added a second business Aerie Loft- overnight stay.  This May we will be in business for 20 years!  Proudly using Square for 12 years!  And launched my Square/Weebly website during COVID.  Locations have changed but my passion has not!!!

[JTPets]

We started my business 6 months before the pandemic. We are only going to offer raw food and some treats to the local community in our central farmers market, 6 months later we were legislated closed for the first lockdowns. We immediately pivoted into a free local delivery company offering free local delivery. We went from 20 skus at launch, to 200 skus and now we have over 1400 skus and 1000 unique products approaching our 4th year of operating this August.

[sattvass]

Congrats! Awesome growth!

[MysticCity]

Our company is now more organized and intuitive, we also have more control over expenditures and our inventory. 

[Prettybrat24]

Honestly I'm still pretty new so it hasn't changed significantly at all. 

[Prettybrat24]

Honestly I'm still pretty new to this so it hasn't changed significantly at all. 

[Arthur43]

Just starting 

[lenjobakes]

I feel like it's never too late to answer a QOTW!

Seeing that my business opened on February 14, 2020 I can say with absolutely certainty that my business does not look anything like I thought it would!

We were supposed to be a bespoke wedding cake studio with retail hours open only on Friday and Saturday. Now we're a retail bakery open 4 days a week that does bespoke cakes on the side and also has a cafe in a village over that's open 5 days a week. 9 staff members later and I still wonder how in the heck I got here!

Sometimes I have to remind myself to keep the main thing the main thing and really focus on the business I wanted to run, but I couldn't dream of closing down the retail side of the business.

Loved reading through each and every one of these replies!

[Bronze_Palms]

A lot of our branding has changed. When I first started my business, I was utilizing so many colors - we are only pink now. Also, there's a lot with fonts and styles we have updated. 

Many of our systems have changed, especially since adding staff. All positive things that really helped streamline the business and grow. It has been so awesome and I am so proud of this business!

[VanKalkerFarms]

Pretty much everything has changed. from location, to types of buildings, to branding.  We are in our third location in 60+ years.  We've gone from modern to 1960s greenhouses to now modern 10+ feet tall greenhouses with cooling abilities.  What we sell has changed a lot too as breeding has changed so much of the habits and traits and colors of plants like petunias.  Plants that were never dreamed of are now a standard crop.  When we started everything was done by hand and now there are lots of machines involved in automation of soil processing, pot filling, planting etc.