The news yesterday about the banks offering to defer loans for 6 months was very welcome. Our landlord has already called us and said if we have any problems, we can sort it out later. Our photo business is showing no signs of any ill effects, in fact, sales are increasing at the moment!!!
By the way, if anyone reading this is in retail, you can also apply to banks to waive EFTPOS fees - this came from our ANZ manager yesterday.
I'm of 2 minds about closing the schools - one side says the government is right. My retail side says send the kids home and they will go out and take photos!!!!! I know it's not the "right" attitude, but kids are shooting film like it's going out of style, and that is what is growing our business.
We have a huge backlog of scanning work/video transfer work which will keep us going for the next 3 weeks easily, and we have done things to our website for online ordering.
We can "self isolate" staff on different floors of the building so assuming they can get into the shop, we can keep going if it gets really bad.
I'm even doing some new radio ads at home on my phone (the radio station is in lockdown) and we are going to use the home recording to add something extra to the ad.
If we can avoid a total mandatory shut down, I'm feeling far more positive at present.
As for travel, we are holding off on anything, but we would think of domestic as there are some hot deals on accommodation at present.