E-Commerce is the best Revenge for Small Businesses

As the tides of public opinion of the severity of the Coronavirus are quickly shifting as politicians, some in the mainstream media and the average American; the carnage of 33.5 million lost jobs are part of the aftermath that has been left behind.  According to a recent FORTUNE article, the Real unemployment rate has soared past 24.9% which is just shy of the highest level of unemployment during The Great Depression of 1929 which was 25.6%.  When you add the new unemployment figures with the 7.1 already unemployed Americans, the real unemployment rate is more than 40 million.

Headlines will soon shift to companies like J.Crew, Niemen Marcus, Kroger, Pier 1 imports, CMX Cinemas, Gold’s Gym, Krystal, Lucky’s Market and others will either file for bankruptcy or restructure.  They may not shut their doors forever, but vendors, creditors and employees will become the latest victims in the overhyped COVID-19 scare of 2020.

The list of these big businesses will be sure to grow and employees and small businesses that depend on these companies will be the ones left to suffer.  In addition, Bloomberg is predicting that 52% of U.S. Small Businesses will fail even as states are starting to partially open up.

We can’t blame the media because any sane person should know the media sensationalizes stories to increase revenue from advertisement.  We really can’t blame politicians because their job security comes from having 1 more vote than the 50% who actually vote.  The lack of leadership has been on display from our Federal Government and State Government, but the worst has been the local County Judges and Mayors who showed their total lack of understanding and laziness to actually lead.  They quickly took to whatever camera was pointing their direction and spewed off misinformation disguised as facts and imprisoned small businesses leaving them to die.  However, the real people to blame are those who look back at us in our mirrors.  We failed to use logic and reason.  We failed to question why it wasn’t likely to get the virus by going to Walmart to fight over toilet paper.  We failed to question people like Chris Cuomo, CNN reporter and brother of flamboyant New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who told the world he was stricken with the seasonal virus and how bad it was.  However, the same week he was supposed to be in quarantine, he was out with family and friends at a dinner party.  We accepted shutting down and ruining the 2020 seniors from finishing high school and college, but allowed Costco, Home Depot, Government Offices, News Media, McDonalds and others to operate fully unscathed.  We made the decision to accept Churches being shut down, but a gathering of news reporters listening to the lies our government officials was just fine.  The worst person in this whole debacle was the average American who took to Facebook and say how bad the virus is, but let their kids hang around others showing a complete hypocrisy while they promoted fear among their friends.

The battle has been deadly, but it isn’t over.  Politicians will ramp up their game plan to pin the blame on the other party.  Citizens will attack each other trying to save their original position of their beliefs.  The American Citizen has already shown those in power how willing they are to give up their rights that our Founding Fathers and American Veterans have fought so hard to preserve.  Yes, we are in the midst of war without a bullet being fired…yet.  This war isn’t against China or Iran (although stay tuned), but it is within each and every one of us.  Our enemy is within because we allowed this to happen.  We chose emotion over logic.

Those who are in business have a choice.  We can give up, which in many cases who can blame you.  It’s another uphill battle you will have to climb.  Or we can adapt and try to overcome another adversity that has been thrown in our face.

Every business will need to immediately look to how they can continue to bring in revenue.  They must have a digital strategy that includes E-Commerce solutions:

·         Website. Your website is the one area that you have the most control.  You can share your message and tell your story.  You can also sell your products and services online.  Your website should be simple to navigate, but also allow your potential customers to purchase your goods.

·         Digital Media Strategy.  You must attract potential customers and retain your current customers.  It will be important to utilize social media sites to gain additional viewers and give them reasons to visit your website.  Your digital marketing should not be just posting a funny meme to Facebook or Twitter.  It must be well thought out and strategic to growing your market share.

·         E-Commerce. You will need to implement a way for customers to purchase your goods and services.  The entities that need this the most are the ones who never thought they needed to promote their services on the internet.  We are in the midst of a New Normal.

·         Adapt.  The economic landscape has done a shift more than the San Andreas Fault.  It would be great to have all the answers, but a digital strategy is probably not your expertise.  Finding a company that understands logic, reasoning and knows how to help you navigate through these unchartered times is vital to helping your business survive, rebuild and thrive in the future.

DeliveryMaxx has been the leader in this arena over the last decade and continues to help businesses in all sectors reach their potential customers through the most innovative digital strategy utilizing common sense and today’s technology.  Our clients experience positive Online Reputation, stronger SEO, concise content management, increase in social media engagement and advertisement and higher customer retention.  We are able to customize and create a strategy for any entity that is trying to gain more exposure on the web.  With clients in multiple industries and across the country such as Automotive Dealerships, Real-Estate Brokers & Agents, Churches, Service Industry, Sports Teams, Non-Profit Organizations and more; we utilize our Patent-Pending Program to develop a digital strategy that will meet the needs of sales, service and messaging to the masses.

DeliveryMaxx is one of the only digital media company that provides a simple to use app which will allow our clients immediately collect online reviews, post engaging videos and online content with branding and advertising.  The program is embedded with digital code helping increase SEO which provides first page results on the Search Engines.  It is a tool that is implanted with a complete digital strategy giving our clients a competitive advantage over the competition.  For more information about DeliveryMaxx contact (888) 938-6299 or watch the DeliveryMaxx Introduction Video!

How Businesses are Adapting to Adversity

It’s easy to tell everyone to stay home when one has a guaranteed paycheck coming in because they are working for a company has either been dictated essential or a company will receive a bailout from the government and can pay for their employees to stay at home.  Remember, essential workers are people like the McDonald’s Drive Thru Order Taker, Nurses, The cart person at Costco, Police Officers, A cashier at Academy Sports & Outdoor, Firefighters, A receptionist at a law firm, Fry Cook at KFC, an Ice Cream Scooper at Braum’s, US Military, Liquor Stores and many more.  These are entities that the government and apparently many of us have no problem with not abiding by the 6 foot rule in social distancing.  These employees must have been declared by the CDC and WHO as a non-threat to our elderly and those with underlying health conditions as policies have made exceptions to allow those employees to continue to provide for their families.  (Disclaimer: For those who do not understand sarcasm, all businesses are essential to the success of our economy!)

However, non-essential employees like Hairdressers, Many Dine-In Restaurants, Churches and Retail Sales have been asked to stay at home so we can eradicate a virus that will continue to reappear each year. (Yes, we have set the precedent for these restrictions to take place again.)

In the last two weeks nearly 10 million new claims for unemployment have been filed according to a New York Times article quoting the US Labor Department.  The speed and scale of the job losses is without precedent. (The only thing faster would have been if we actually would have seen 2.2 million deaths (6,027 a day) like the famous Epidemiologist, Neil Ferguson boldly predicted (later changing the claims as drastically lower because over 85% who get the virus show no or very mild symptoms) and our Government that passed a 2.2 Trillion Dollar Pork Filled So-Called Stimulus Package that we are leaving our children to pay back.)  We are well on our way to etch our fate into history as we skip right over another major recession and right into The 2^nd Great Depression.  All it will take is for our labor force to get to the 60 million jobless mark.  According to St. Louis Fed projections, the coronavirus economic freeze better could cost 47 million jobs and send the unemployment rate past 32%.

There is a silver lining though!  

Everyone who is tired of hearing about the Coronavirus and Social Distancing will start hearing about higher crime rate both violent and non-violent, increased divorce rate, child abuse, more government regulation and quick fixes, socialist programs, mental health, suicides and drug addiction.  It only took World War 2 to pull us out of the last Great Depression where 418,500 American military and civilians paid the price with their lives.  We have several foreign countries like North Korea, Iran, China and more who love the political discourse in our country and will gladly be ready to take us on in a war.  In fact, yesterday a U.S. official said intelligence threads about a potential attack by Iran or Iran-backed forces had been building for some time. The official did not disclose intelligence on the timing or precise locations of any attack.

The great thing about many businesses and entities as no matter how insane regulations and obstacles our government has put in front of them, they have found a way to overcome and provide a living for their family and the families they employee.

In a recent Forbes blog, Tom Coliccho, founder of Crafted Hospitality and host of Bravo’s Top Chef expects that 70% of restaurants will close and not be able to reopen unless they receive another $440 Billion Dollars.  (That’s only another $13,000 on top of the $30,000 that every family will have to pay back in taxes.  It’s just debt.)  Restaurants already have a slim margin for profit, but provide many jobs for single parents, independent college students, career service providers and part-time employees.  Even Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez better known as AOC who is the Socialist Democratic US Representative for New York’s 14^th congressional district was a bartender just before she was elected by New Yorkers and now serves on committees making decisions for the rest of the country.  These restaurant owners are trying everything possible from utilizing social media to encourage viewers to buy recipes and uncooked products just to keep their business open.

Churches have utilize video messaging and social media platforms to conduct their weekly sermons.  However, our religious house of worship need additional revenue from their parishioners to continue to provide outreach programs for abused women and children, unemployed households trying to provide food for their families, homelessness and other charitable opportunities.  In addition to the lead preacher, churches have a staff of maintenance crew, secretaries, accountants and other essential employees that are needed to keep the doors open.

Those employees who are in sales have adapted to get their message out to the masses as well.  They still have products to sell which is inventory the businesses must move to continue to pay rent on buildings, salaries for staff support, other vendors who provide necessary services and monthly operational expenditures.  Sales people are utilizing social media through image and video messaging to continue to comply with the social distancing guidelines.

The Greek philosopher, Plato once stated, “Necessity is the mother of invention.”  A need or problem encourages creative efforts to meet the need of solve the problem.  Yes, we have a virus that can kill people.  However, the government regulations that have been put in place will also ultimately lead to others untimely death or at the least destroy everything they have worked for and the opportunities they are providing for others to achieve life, liberty and their pursuit of happiness.

Nobody would think any different if the shutdown only meant 2 weeks of everyone staying at home.  However, this economic halt will have much more consequences than 2 weeks of helping your kids with online classes.

To recover or even avoid being completely shut down, businesses must embrace a technological transformation in automation as well as trying to provide their message to the masses gaining a reach to solicit, sell and service their products.  In today’s world, businesses now more than ever must have a digital strategy.  Today it is the Coronavirus, tomorrow it will be something else.  Our customers are spending more hours of the day online shopping, researching or mindless browsing.  Now more than ever, all eyes are on social media.  As a matter of fact, 66% of social media users believe their social media usage habit will increase in the event they are confined to their home due to the Coronavirus.  Over 60% of both YouTube and Facebook users expect an increase while only 2% expect a decrease.

DeliveryMaxx has been the leader in this arena over the last decade and continues to help businesses in all sectors reach their potential customers through the most innovative digital strategy utilizing common sense and today’s technology.  Our clients experience positive Online Reputation, stronger SEO, concise content management, increase in social media engagement and advertisement and higher customer retention.  We are able to customize and create a strategy for any entity that is trying to gain more exposure on the web.  With clients in multiple industries and across the country such as Automotive Dealerships, Real-Estate Brokers & Agents, Churches, Service Industry, Sports Teams, Non-Profit Organizations and more; we utilize our Patent-Pending Program to develop a digital strategy that will meet the needs of sales, service and messaging to the masses.  DeliveryMaxx is one of the only digital media company that provides a simple to use app which will allow to immediately collect online reviews, post engaging videos and online content with branding and advertising.  The program is embedded with digital code helping increase SEO which provides first page results on the Search Engines.  It is a tool that is implanted with a complete digital strategy giving their clients a competitive advantage over the competition.  For more information about DeliveryMaxx contact (888) 938-6299 or watch the DeliveryMaxx Introduction Video!

DeliveryMaxx is not saying this virus is not serious and our company adheres to the CDC guidelines doing our part to keep people safe.  However, we are concerned with the future of our country and feel that current government regulations is not the answer to handling this crisis.  We want everyone to stay safe as well as every business to be able to continue to contribute to what has made our country so great.  We will do everything in our power to help out any business or entity to continue to bring in revenue because we know you are providing opportunities for all of your employees.