Fayetteville business sees success going fully online for remainder of year amid COVID-19
FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. (WTVD) -- A brick and mortar shop in Downtown Fayetteville is temporarily closing its doors, going completely online for the remainder of the year.
Like many businesses along Hay Street, Pressed: A Creative Space, is finding innovative ways to remain afloat during such an economically uncertain time.
Ashley and Jon Thompson are the owners of the business, which sells a myriad of gift items including: shirts, snacks, crystals and other North Carolina-made items.
In their nearly five years of business, they've never dealt with as many road blocks as they've seen in 2020.
"All of sudden, we had no income coming in. Um, and things like construction and things like that. The downtown area, itself, has just been difficult to predict what each day is going to bring, foot traffic wise," Thompson said.
So, the married couple decided to heavily invest in their online sales option.
"We kind of put everything toward our online business, which we've been working on for two years, but this gave us the time and space to focus on it," Thompson said of the moment they were forced to shut down at the beginning of the pandemic.
Since then, their social media interaction and website sales have become the bulk of their income, keeping them in good standing, financially.
Thompson says they chose to shut down their physical store on July 31 to save some money and focus on their successful model.
"It'll save us a lot of overhead, scheduling, staffing," Thompson added.
While it won't be long term, Ashley and Jon hope their current trajectory will bring them back to the forefront of downtown Fayetteville, after the pandemic blows over.
Ashley told ABC11 they don't have a timeline on when they'll re-open their brick and mortar business.
