HOW HAVE YOU NAVIGATED RUNNING YOUR BUSINESS THROUGH COVID INCLUDING ADAPTING TO CHANGES AND SUPPORTING YOUR STAFF ? The emergence of COVID came at a very interesting time for Cake Decorating Central . Similar to many retail businesses ; from mid 2019 to early 2020 business in our retail stores was tough . Then along came COVID and let ’ s not lie ; in the early days we were wondering if we would survive . After the initial shock and with the government programs to help we regrouped and really had to look at where we needed to improve our business . We had been investigating changes to our website and while we didn ’ t have customers in store it was a prime time to blow up our old website and start again . Best decision EVER ! Our website produced close to 10,000 orders in our first 12 months ! We also knew that our cake decorating kits were always a popular choice and with our customers locked down we concentrated on regularly creating new kits . With our first lockdown in Sydney we only had our full time staff , Kylie and Louise available to work . Thankfully as soon as we could we had our staff back on deck and our primary concern was making sure they were comfortable being back in an environment with face to face contact with customers . Our second and longer lockdown in Sydney saw many of our staff unavailable again and we needed to change our teams as our online orders exploded ! As the transport industry buckled under the pressure of the online explosion we recruited available family and friends to do local deliveries to our customers . This was both an extremely rewarding but busy time with Kylie and Louise working long hours . Our poor girls in our Nunawading store have shown the highest amount of perseverance in our whole business . Excruciatingly long lockdowns throughout the past two years brought a very different set of challenges . But each and every one of our team has stepped up at different times to keep our business operating . Kylie ’ s first trip back to Nunawading after the last lockdown was a day of pure joy ! The retail COVID government measures surrounding QR codes , masks and vaccination passports has been an extremely testing time for all our staff . Our staff have exceeded our expectations of their abilities to cope .
WHAT ARE 3 POSITIVES TO COME OUT OF THE PAST 3 YEARS FOR YOU PERSONALLY OR YOUR BUSINESS ? I would say that the past two years have been the most positive for me personally and in business .
1 . Physical and mental health became my number one priority and the positives have been numerous ; especially general mood and ability to handle stressful situations . 2 . Letting go ; don ’ t stress on the things I can ’ t change . 3 . I found my crew – family and friends who are there through anything , no judgment just support and love .