Diversification into other trades has become the strategy of survival for small and retail businessmen hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic spread and successive lockdowns.
Groceries, food and health products are seen as the safest bets as people are desperately looking for immunity boosters and good nutrition. Masks and gloves, earlier found only in pharmacies, are now seen in all shops irrespective of the business type.
A stationery shop on Chaitanyapuri Road in Kothapet, for example, has now been replaced with a sparkling new board, ‘Bhavani Kirana General and Stationery’, post lockdown.
“Usually, the months between March and June are hectic for us as students prepare for the new school year. But we incurred heavy losses in the stationery business during the lockdown period, as the schools and colleges were closed, and nobody knew when they would reopen,” related Lalitha, the owner.
Even without the pandemic, stationery business was not in its best shape, as school managements sold students even notebooks and pens. They, in turn, booked them online.
Plan B
While not entirely closing down the stationery business, Lalitha and her husband Mahesh diversified into groceries. Now, daily essentials such as onions, garlic, and tamarind occupy the front portion of the shop, along with paper plates which are in huge demand owing to home isolation protocol of COVID-19 patients. Masks and gloves, apart from face shields, are sold by the dozen every day, they say. These safety gear, in fact, adorn all the shop fronts irrespective of the nature of business.
Abdul Aleem, owner of a diminutive store in Natraj Nagar of Erragadda, is dabbling in more than two kinds of trade. He, along with two of his brothers, sold fruits in Erragadda market, before construction of Hyderabad Metro Rail displaced them. “We had to shift our stall elsewhere, and the business has dropped. We then opened a garments store, and started selling jeans, T-shirts and jackets, before lockdown came upon us,” he narrated.
With no sales in their store since lockown, the brothers have now begun wholesale trade in eggs which are promoted as possessing great nutritional value in the backdrop of the pandemic. Trays of eggs stacked one on the other can be seen in their store now, relegating the T-shirts and jackets to background.
Health drinks and dry fruits are another flourishing business option, with new outlets coming up everywhere. “I had a small mobile repair and accessories shop earlier. I wound it up during lockdown as there was hardly any business. Instead, I began selling dry fruits, bringing them from wholesale market,” Trinadh Reddy, a small trader in Saroornagar, informed.
