Tuesday, Apr 7, 2020
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This is our war By Sue Newman
sue.n@theguardian.co.nz
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If the four-week Covid-19 lockdown becomes six weeks, there’ll be a swag of retailers starting to hurt, Bob McDonald says. The Health 2000 owner keeps in touch with fellow business owners in the Ashburton Arcade and is in contact with other retailers around the district and said the reality of the impact of the lockdown on their business was now starting to hit home for many. “This is our war, our generation’s war. We’ve never seen anything like this. This is way bigger than the global financial crash. This is huge.” While there had been a wage relief package from the government businesses were still waiting for details on business relief, McDonald said.
“At the moment we can handle this but if it goes on it’ll get pretty worrying. If it goes beyond four weeks, we’ll be starting to stress. “When the shop doors closed, the bills didn’t stop coming – power, phone, insurance, ACC, PAYE, GST, it’s all money going out the door with none coming in. It’s starting to get serious.” As yet, McDonald said he had not heard of any retailers saying they were unlikely to reopen, but it was inevitable the shutdown would be the end for some, he said. In terms of the future of Ashburton’s retail hub and CBD vibrancy the last thing needed was for there to be more empty shops, McDonald said. As a health store retailer, he’s disappointed that health shops weren’t in-
cluded in the essential service bracket. “In the week before the shutdown we were incredibly busy with people stocking up and yet we’re not seen as essential to health. I get what they’re trying to do but I’m not sure they have the methodology right.” Health 2000 nationally has petitioned the government to allow it to do online orders and contactless delivery. McDonald’s keeping his fingers crossed on that one. “We could be trading tomorrow. All our suppliers supply the supermarkets so they’re still operating.” For many retailers, when the lockdown ended, how quickly they were able to get back into business would depend on their supply chain and the pressure on those chains from export orders, McDonald said.
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