Under lockdown restrictions, Canberra retailers, deemed non-essential, have been forced to close shop both physically and online – regardless of their capacity to safely facilitate orders.
Owner of Braddon plant store Green Vine, Irene Donoghoe, established her business a month before lockdown.
Prior to that she had co-run Trilogy Skateboards in Canberra for more than a decade.
Anticipating a lockdown could be imminent, the Green Vine owner is one of many local business people who prepared by setting up an online shop that would allow them to operate should they have to close their shopfronts.
It was the acumen she acquired from previous business experience that prompted her to do that.
Ms Donoghoe said there are “hundreds of businesses” in Canberra just like hers who could operate completely safely online during the lockdown.
“We have an online store we’ve worked really hard to get in place,” she said.
Currently, restrictions on non-essential businesses don’t allow them to trade safely online via delivery.
Even if they took orders, business owners like Ms Donoghoe aren’t technically able to leave their homes to fill them.
This is despite Canberrans being able to place orders with retailers across Australia and the world.
“You can’t actually order anything online from a local store, you have to order it from a Sydney or Melbourne store currently, which is ridiculous,” Ms Donoghoe said.
“We need to still be able to have some sort of ability to trade online … Our customers want to support us, but there’s just no way they can with our current rules.”
Ms Donoghoe described the situation as “frustrating”, saying it’s “just sad that we have to send our business to other areas and not actually support our local community”.
“We’re in a very difficult position, we’ve got stuff in place but aren’t allowed to do anything,” she said.
Florist’s “shop full of stock” rotting while customers order flowers from Sydney
Owner and operator of established Braddon florist Moxom + Whitney, Loulou Moxom, currently has a “shop full of stock” worth many thousands of dollars ordered the day before lockdown commenced, wilting in her shut shop.
“It couldn’t be cancelled,” Ms Moxom said.
“I’ve got stock just rotting and there’s nothing I can do about it, it’s literally rotting. I can’t store flowers.
“It’s devastating, absolutely devastating.”
Being unable to trade, Ms Moxom has seen flowers delivered to nearby Braddon residents from a Sydney florist, such is the absurdity of the current restrictions.
“That has just got ‘hell no’ written all over it,” she said.
Like many Canberra retailers well-versed in safe trading, Ms Moxom is calling for a “sensible approach” to operating conditions for local non-essential businesses.
“All small business owners are asking is let us trade, let us do what we do, we know how to do it safely, it is our livelihood,” she said.
Ms Moxom has had over 300 missed calls in the shop for flowers and is turning away emails every day.
“Our services are being asked for,” she said. “Where is the harm in that if we can do it safely?”
While grateful for the government supports available, Ms Moxom said the funding isn’t enough to cover her costs.
“What is being offered currently is not enough for me to pay my suppliers for that last lot of flowers we got,” she said.
“I don’t want to rely on government support … there are other people who need it more than me.”
ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr today said his government is working with “a range of industry associations” on Covid-safe arrangements for businesses impacted by lockdown measures.
“This work is focused on gradual, measured and safe steps that we can take in the future to ease restrictions,” he said.
He flagged that the restrictions need to “stay as they are for the time being”.
“Things like contactless delivery, click and collect, those sorts of options … when case numbers allow it, we can bring that sort of change in,” he said.
“Where we are right now, I’m not going to be standing up here tomorrow and announcing a significant range of changes.”
For Ms Moxom and many other Canberra retailers, if those changes aren’t implemented soon, they could be too little, too late.
“If we can open and deliver safely and contactless by Friday or this weekend, we’d still be able to get back on track, but after that, we are stuffed,” she said.
“That’s the reality, and I know a lot of other businesses in our position.”
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