Businesses have also been negatively impacted due to COVID-19. Millions of businesses, large and small, have been forced to close due to statewide mandates that require all non-essential businesses (those which do not deal with goods or services related to sustaining life) to close. For businesses that have been ordered to close completely, the financial loss is total. While many small businesses are applying for emergency business bailouts, not all of them are approved.
Additionally, what money is provided may not stretch very far in the current economic climate. For businesses that are allowed to remain open, revenue may still be impacted negatively. In almost every state with stay-in-place orders, businesses that have managed to stay open have been required to shutter their physical spaces and serve customers through online, curbside, drive-through and delivery options only.
While some businesses are adapting to this new stipulation well, some small business owners are either unable to handle that transition, or they are not getting enough orders per day to justify the cost of opening for business. In many cases, the orders per day may only be a fraction of what they were before the pandemic, primarily if that business relied on people’s lives—and the economy—operating normally.