Shuttered

Monday, the order finally came from the governor that all non-essential businesses had to close to the public in order to slow the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus.  There was some imprecise language in the "essential" definition list of what could remain open, but rather than fighting the tide, DSG ownership anticipated this and decided to set up to take what advantage we could.

Let me dispose of the fact right away that I think the lockdown is an overreaction and that the scorched-earth economy is going to cause more deaths than the unchecked virus ever could, as I explained in last week's article, from a combination of crime, drug overdoses, suicides, medical problems needing resources exhausted by COVID cases, and so on, especially as the lockout goes on longer.  But I also recognize that no politician can do the correct thing here, because no matter what they do, the media will crucify them with every COVID death in their jurisdiction, so they need to be looking like there's no bridge they won't cross to "fight this pandemic."  We're all going to be paying for this forever.  There's no way to prevail now.  May as well ride the toboggan down.

Anyway, since we're all going to pay for this forever, I wanted our staff to get as much of that money for themselves as they possibly could, so we laid them all off so they could claim unemployment.  They will receive the Wage Report in the mail shortly, which will match up with the W-2 payroll-taxed wages we paid them.  A lot of game stores and other questionable businesses who paid their people under the table are about to get caught with their legal pants down rather badly.  Those businesses' saving grace is that Departments of Revenue across the continent will be overworked and understaffed right now to do much investigating.

With no staff and only Griffin and me to run the store, we figured we'd be pretty slammed for the most part, but with only six or so open hours per day, we could do the shipping in a dark store, and still receive deliveries and so forth normally, and within a week or less, we'd be forced to close regardless by the state so what did it matter if we had a tough few days.  Our wait was less than 48 hours, and that counted taking our respective Sundays off to rest and recuperate.  We ran a fruitful Monday with a modest count of arrivals but each one absolutely determined to stock their game rooms, and we hope today is similarly solid.  Then we can close the doors and go about the deliberate and relatively tranquil work of selling solely online.

Make no mistake, in-store transactions are the most efficient, bar none.  It's why we make sure our best merch can be purchased in-store, including that being the exclusive conveyance channel for the effective entirety of our video game stock.  So we didn't actually want to have to close the storefront, but we accepted a closed store with online shipping as a likely scenario.  Two weeks ago, I didn't think Amazon would turn off FBA shipments, and that has put a significant cramp in my style.  I expected to be offloading meaningful amounts of overflow there.  And the closure of TCGPlayer Direct makes my best marketplace channel for online singles into a metaphorical Paralympian, which fortunately is sufficient when everyone else in competition is under the same constraints.  And eBay is just bad these days.  Putting the three together, I expect Griffin and I to spend at least the next week mostly just processing singles through the store's digestive system.  We're backed up to all eternity with collection buys anyway.  Time to regain some ground.

I'm hoping online orders maintain such volume that we can't do much else until the eventual reopening.  If the store gets funded by one of the CARES Act business relief provisions, we'll bring the staff back pronto and they can pick up this stethoscope and walk.  Griffin and I will then be at liberty to perform substantial infrastructure improvements under the enforced emptiness.  The last thing on the agenda will be filling out front-of-house video game stock, since we can't convert that to money until absolutely re-opening the doors.  With a long haul of uncertain, uh, longness, ahead... we need to make sure we're not spending a dollar that isn't going to turn back into more dollars somehow.

That's about it, I guess.  See you on the other side!