A Redlands jeweler shares her experience in difficult times
A Redlands jeweler shares her experience in difficult times
Note: A new feature this week! Tuesdays are still for general economic updates, and Fridays are still for special topics posts. This Friday, the special topic is a feature from a local small business! Would you like to be next? You can contact me or leave a comment on this post. And as always, please share and urge people to subscribe.
Introduction: Meltem Semizoğlu owns Melt’m Jewelry, located at 104 E. State St. Suite C in Downtown Redlands. She also has online stores at https://www.etsy.com/shop/meltemsem/ and https://meltmjewelry.com/. She has been working in her trade since 2007, and she moved to California in 2017 to expand. At Melt’m, every gemstone and diamond is picked by hand. The jewelry is all hand-made in Meltem’s workshop.
I asked Meltem some questions about how her business has fared through the pandemic. Below are her edited responses.
DM: The pandemic started in March 2020 and the economy was badly affected. Give us a quick timeline of events from your business' perspective. What were the hardest times, and when did things start to recover? How are things now compared to before the pandemic started?
MS: When the pandemic started, we closed the store doors to the public. I didn't have any idea when we would open again or how we would survive. There was great uncertainty. After 2-3 weeks, online sales started to increase. We were very surprised. I have 2 helpers in the workshop. We did not work together; we started to work by shift. It was hard. In the beginning, we had some disruptions. I couldn't do the final quality checks of the products.
After 1 month, customers started to complain more, getting impatient and angry. (I believe there were psychological effects of the pandemic besides the boredom of staying at home. I observed more aggressive behavior.) Meanwhile we were also dealing with supply side bottlenecks, not finding the materials we needed. Since we were new, our main goal was to grow the business. We managed to grow during the pandemic, and we continue to grow.
DM: After getting off to a good start earlier this year, the economy slowed down over the summer. Has this also been the experience at your business? If things have actually been pretty good for you over the last few months, why do you think that's the case?
MS: I started to observe a slowdown in our business at the end of August. Both online and in-person sales were declining in September and October. The sales have begun to rise again since last week. We are definitely affected by the general performance of the economy.
DM: Some businesses have complained that it's been hard to hire or retain workers in these times. Has this been your experience as well? If you have not had any major problems, why do you think that's the case?
MS: Our workers were a little hesitant and stressed at the beginning of the pandemic. Because none of us knew what was going to happen. We could have spent months without any sales. However, I never thought of dismissing the workers. I accepted the risk of paying their wages at least for 5-6 months without earning much, and I gave them assurance. I think all of us accepted to sacrifice a little bit and managed to get through this period without damage. We are a small business; our close relationship with the workers prevented any problems.
Thanks again to Meltem for sharing her invaluable thoughts and experiences.