Pre-Pandemic, Select Legacy Brands Leaned Into Online Retail. Will It Help Them Weather Current Store Closures?
Faire traditionally sold a lot of candles, stationary and beauty but as the pace of the COVID-19 spread increases, it has shifted gear to more urgent inventory. The platform’s top-seller is now disinfectant and it’s been trying to add more household essentials like hand soap, hand sanitizer and food hoping to help local businesses get them to customers who find them sold out on Amazon or other major chains.
Michelle Macey, 54, owns an organic skincare and beauty store in East Aurora, New York, and has doubled the size of her orders on items like deodorant, soap, lotion and nail polish. “Those products used to be more of an afterthought. Now, they’ve become the forefront of what people are looking for,” says Macey.
Macey, for example, never thought she’d get much use out of the website she set up a year ago and is now getting orders from new customers as far away as Puerto Rico, California and Washington. She’s introduced free, two-day shipping and is investing heavily in social media, including learning howtheir daily skincare routines.