Jonathan Allen and Brad Brooks

LUBBOCK Texas (Reuters). Phillip Howard pointed out a stack black ski pants stacked high on a counter of his winter sport shop to show the difficulties small-business owners are still facing as the pandemic continues.

Troy’s Ski Lubbock store in west Texas had expected the pants to be delivered by August. That was well before the five-month peak season for selling, which kicks off in October. The pants arrived in China from China during the first week January. This was delayed by supply chain failures.

Howard claimed that “late-arriving product really hurts us.” He noted this week that other products had also arrived late to his sales season. “I have been in the business of almost twenty years and never seen anything like it.”

Many small-scale businesses in the United States face three major challenges as the pandemic progresses into its third year. They are facing deepening supply chains issues, frequent staff shortages, and less customers in certain areas. This is all in the fear of an Omicron increase in COVID-19 case.

Federal Reserve has released the latest anecdotes from nationwide businesses and labor groups about the current state of the economy. This shows that Omicron’s rapid expansion was increasing difficulties in hiring and inflation.

According to the Commerce Department, U.S. retail sales declined 1.9% in December because of a lack of goods and rising infections.

Even though bankruptcy and failure rates in small businesses have been lower than anticipated due to the economic recovery and federal assistance, managing day-to-day operations has proved difficult. Since the beginning of the pandemic, census surveys have shown that concerns are shifting steadily from shrinking cash reserves to a search for financing to problems with supply chains as well rising costs.

Howard explained that he is placing orders now for next year and was concerned about double-digit inflation. For almost all the things I order, it’s about 10%.

‘UPSIDE DEEP AGAIN’

Staffing shortages forced Gage & Tollner, a 19th-century chop house in Brooklyn, New York, to close for five days in late December.

St. John Frizell is the co-owner and estimates that around 30% of employees at the restaurant had been infected with COVID-19 during the month. The owners wanted all staff to be negative for coronavirus before they could return to work. However, this often led to long lines and employees waiting to get their swabs.

He stated, “We need lots and lots of testing.”

He welcomes the Governor Kathy Hochul’s suggestion this month that New York allow bars and restaurants to offer cocktails “to go” permanently. It is an emergency provision created when venues were prohibited from serving customers in their establishments in 2020.

Alan Rosen, owner of Junior’s Bakery and Restaurant in the same area, said that there have been supply chain difficulties and shortages. Sometimes, he had to close down entire restaurants because there weren’t enough servers.

Rosen explained that goods prices are high and inflationary pressure has created chaos in supply chains.

BYKlyn, Amy Glosser’s cycling studio in Brooklyn, was relocated to new outdoor spaces by Glosser during the summer 2020 to ensure that the business continued to thrive. Glosser explained that Glosser and her employees could not endure another winter in the outdoors so on December 1, she relocated the business to temporary indoors.

The Omicron variant then hit New York City and approximately 40% of its 200 members wanted to cancel/pause their memberships.

Glosser explained that “people are anxious to come in and sweat together.”

Randy Peers of Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce stated that he was concerned about small businesses getting evicted following New York’s Pandemic-era moratorium on evictions. Peers also pointed out that nearly a third of Chamber businesses owe rent.

Peers stated that optimism increased over the summer, early fall and after the city had lifted many restrictions and high vaccination rates. This optimism lasted until Thanksgiving.

He said, “Then Omicron just tore everything upside down again.”

‘HOLDING OUR BREATH ‘

Although small business owners in states that are less restrictive than New York’s COVID regulations say their customers continue to come out of the state, other issues such as pandemics still plague them.

Mark Pectol, who owns four Zesty Zzeeks Pizza & Wings shops in the Phoenix metro area, said he never dreamed his biggest nightmare as a small business owner would come in the form of supply chain issues.

“I’m not sure if I will have pizza boxes at end of week,” he stated. “If I don’t have pizza boxes, I’m closing my business. “We’re not holding our breath.”

Pectol claimed that even though he could still get pizza boxes, he was already being warned about the possibility of a flour shortage.

It would be cruelly ironic. Pectol stated that even during the first year after the pandemic, grocery stores were unable to keep flour on the shelves. He could however still purchase it bulk from his supplier. He sold 140,000 pounds of flour, even though his shops were shut down due to pandemic restrictions.

The supply chain’s unpredictable nature may now be against him.

“My distributor assured me that they would have enough flour to last me for at least a month. He said that they had no flour this week. It’s not possible to get flour from large distributors. Where can I buy it?