She Lost 60% of Her Business in One Week
Lockdowns hammered retailers across the U.K., forcing many to be creative to survive.
Karen Woolven at her flower shop in Greenwich, southeast London.
Photographer: Simon Dawson/BloombergImagine your small business lost £300,000 ($405,000) of orders in just one week. Karen Woolven can tell you all about it.
Before the coronavirus pandemic struck, she had a successful independent floral shop in southeast London, with some 60 percent of her income coming from weddings and corporate events. She’d supply flowers to the grand livery halls and banking houses in the City of London, and decorate around 200 corporate dinners and award ceremonies a year. For this year she had 32 weddings booked, the calendar full through September.
Then Italy shut its borders just before Mother’s Day, held on March 22 in the U.K.. “We were starting to get a little bit nervous,” says Woolven, 47, who opened her shop in Greenwich eight years ago. Besides worrying about sourcing flowers from continental Europe, she feared lockdowns could come to the U.K. and hit her key sources of income.