Shop name: Powers BMX Shop
Location: 3119 Williamsburg Road, Richmond, VA 23231, USA.
Years in business: 16
Best year yet: Every year gets better and better
Worst year yet: Will be when people stop riding BMX
What were your first thoughts on Covid-19 when it hit?
Chad Powers: I freaked out! Told the dudes we were all working a rotating schedule and if they wanted to file unemployment then to do so. That only lasted about a week.
Shop name: Paul’s Boutique BMX Hardware Store
Location: Dorpsstraat 66a, Aarle-Rixtel, the Netherlands
Years in business: 25
Best year yet: 2012
Worst year yet: 2017
2020 has been, well, different. When did Covid-19 turn up and start influencing your business?
Paul de Jong: I closed the shop on March 14 when the first Covid-19 Lockdown was announced in the Netherlands and haven’t been open on regular times since then.
Did you take any action from the start or were you thinking this would be over in a few weeks?
Paul de Jong: I already knew it was for the long haul so in the beginning I didn’t order any new parts in Taiwan but for the rest it was business like usual.
Now, being in this situation for many months, how did you manage to keep your business rolling?
Shop name: Alans BMX
Location: Wigan, England
Years in business: 40 years coming up!
Best year yet: 2020
Worst year yet: 2020
2020 has been, well, different. When did Covid-19 turn up and start influencing your business?
Alan: Straight away in March really. Things just went crazy. We were having some work done separate our building and this gave us the opportunity to close our retail space to get this done finally.
Tom G: As soon as we went into lockdown things got mad busy, everyone was wanting parts to get back into BMX or even normal cycling (We also sell MTB bikes), we ended up furloughing a staff member as we were not sure how things would go and instantly regretted it.