No state is more restrictive on retailers than New Mexico this year.
O n Saturday morning, Belita Clover expects to be working at her store, The Octopus and The Fox, just as she’s done on the Saturday after Thanksgiving every year for nearly a decade.
Small Business Saturday is typically one of the busiest days of the year at the small shop that sells locally produced, handmade goods in a bustling Albuquerque, N.M. neighborhood.
But there will be one thing noticeably missing from Clover’s shop this year: shoppers.
Heading into one of the most important shopping weekends of the year, New Mexico’s Democratic governor Michelle Lujan Grisham has ordered most of her state’s retailers to shutter their shops in an effort to curb rising coronavirus infections. The order, which went into effect in mid-November, runs at least through the end of the month.
Grocery stores and big box retailers that sell “essential” goods are allowed to remain open, though with limited hours and occupancy limits. Other shops, like Clover’s, are only allowed to operate with minimal staff to provide delivery and curbside pickup services.
That’s what Clover intends to do when she arrives at work on Saturday.
“I knew this was going to happen,” Clover said. “I could see it coming. It’s too bad that it has to be at our busiest time of the year.”
The coronavirus pandemic has upended retail across the country, with many stores closing for good and several chains declaring bankruptcy as customers increasingly turn to online options and one-stop shopping at big box stores. But while retail giants such as Amazon and Walmart have seen record profits during the pandemic, small and mid-sized retailers have not rebounded as quickly, according to the National Retail Federation.
Now, heading into the all-important holiday shopping season, many of those retailers are pinning their hopes on a strong end of the year to keep them afloat in 2021, even as governors, primarily in the bluest states, continue to impose pandemic-related restrictions on them.
In November and December, the National Retail Federation is forecasting retail sales across the country to increase 3.6 percent to 5.2 percent, or $755.3 billion to $766.7 billion. Online and other non-store sales are expected to increase between 20 percent and 30 percent.
Jason Straczewski, vice president of government relations for the retail federation, said he expects to see people redirect money from their travel budgets to retail purchases this year.
While several states have imposed curfews and capacity limits on retailers, Straczewski sees them as manageable for most retailers and a “reasonable middle-of-the road approach” to protect people from the spreading virus.
But no state is more restrictive on retailers than New Mexico this year.
“New Mexico is one area that is a bit of a concern,” Straczewski said.
Retail advocates take issue with governments deeming some businesses essential and others non-essential. There is no reason, they say, that New Mexico booksellers should be treated differently than stores selling bananas, as long as they abide by the state’s safety protocols.
Bryan Wachter, senior vice president of the New Mexico Retailers Association, said regulations should be applied evenly across the retail industry.
“The virus doesn’t care whether it’s a tire shop or whether it’s in a grocery store,” he said. “Those businesses are what are keeping employees hired right now. They’re providing tax returns back to the state. Really, I think it makes more sense to just enforce the same set of rules for everybody, and expect everyone who wants to stay in business to comply, than it is to kind of arbitrarily pick winners and losers.”
Under the current New Mexico restrictions, many smaller retailers are forced to close their shops and watch as their customers head to Walmart and Target, which are allowed to remain open because they sell “essential” items – groceries and home improvement products, for example – as well as “non-essential” toys, sports supplies, and home goods.
“The most frustrating thing is that big businesses get to stay open and little businesses don’t,” said Clover, who believes smaller shops should get preference because they can better monitor and regulate who is in their store and if they’re wearing masks.
Wachter said New Mexico’s regulations hurt small businesses that rely on foot traffic, and they’re bad for people who don’t have access to online shopping options. A recent study found that New Mexico has the seventh-highest percentage of unbanked households in the nation. And about 30 percent of the state’s residents don’t have Internet access.
“We’re worried when customers can’t access the stores they rely upon,” Wachter said.
Clover said businesses such as hers have been forced to adapt to avoid having their stores shuttered.
“Businesses right now are just having to figure out another way to make money, look at everything differently,” she said. “Yes, I have a shop that no one can come into anymore, but I have all of this product. I’ve got to sell it. I’ve got to keep making money.”
She scrambled in March to shift her business online. Because she sells so many unique items, putting everything online and updating her website after every sale was a hassle. Now it’s a necessity. Her loyal customers have followed her into cyberspace, keeping her business afloat.
“It really just took a global pandemic for me to put everything online,” she said.
Kiko Torres, who owns Masks Y Mas, an Albuquerque art gallery and gift shop with a focus on traditional Mexican art, has also focused on improving his website and reorganizing his store during the lockdown. He makes about 25 percent to 30 percent of his money during the Christmas season, so he hopes he’ll be allowed to reopen soon. But he’d rather be safe.
Torres has a second income from his job as a real estate agent, so he’ll get by. But he’s worried about his employees, and he worries about other businesses in the neighborhood.
“If you’re a new business and you don’t have any income coming in and you have these really high bills coming in for rent alone, you’re not going to make it,” he said.
Not all New Mexico retailers are struggling because of the pandemic. In fact, Keri Piehl’s Color Wheel Toys in Albuquerque has thrived. After four years in business, she’s on pace for her best year yet, she said. But, she admits, she has had advantages.
Color Wheel Toys is a seasonal, pop-up store that typically opens in a different location every fall. The store specializes in hands-on toys, specialty toys, and retro toys that typically aren’t sold at big box stores. The only other independent toy store in the area recently closed.
Because Piehl wasn’t open for business in the spring and summer, she essentially watched the pandemic in slow motion and had time to adapt.
She developed a website, and is now doing most of her business through online orders and curbside pickups (she doesn’t do shipping). She also made sure to rent a storefront with a lot of windows.
“We have one of everything displayed in the windows right now,” she said. “I was planning for a shutdown from the beginning, before I ever signed that lease.”
While she’s not encouraging large groups to gather at the windows, she’s making some sales to people who walk by the store. Because her store isn’t open to shoppers — and she won’t open to shoppers this year, even if she’s allowed — she doesn’t have to enforce capacity limits and call out customers who aren’t wearing masks, “pandemic patrol,” as she calls it.
“It allows us to just focus on the part that is enjoyable and fun,” she said.
Piehl doesn’t rely on the income from her store to survive, and she feels for local retailers who do. She said she’s seen a lot of support from customers who have increasingly come to appreciate small businesses such as hers since the first lockdown in the spring.
“I think people are super fresh from that,” she said, “realizing how key and important the small businesses and independent local artists and makers are to our community, and every community.”