Upgraded.
May 30, 2020 06: 04:03
On Australia’s longest continuous shopping strip, small companies are hacking what they do to survive. For a lot of, the future stays extremely unpredictable.
The traders on Sydney Roadway in Melbourne like to say it’s the longest shopping strip in the southern hemisphere.
Once the main thoroughfare from Melbourne to Sydney, it’s now a busy rural melting pot that transitions from hipster cafes, grungy bars and op stores to kebab houses, continental pastry shops and bridal couture, a location that embraces the old and outdated as much as the brand-new and polished.
That’s always become part of its rough-around-the-edges appeal.
Even prior to coronavirus, a lot of the shopfronts on this 4.5-kilometre stretch could lay dormant for months, even years.
Now with the blow of a pandemic, company owner are rushing to keep their heads above water.
There’s floral designer Helen Davies, who sobbed for 5 days after losing countless dollars of occasion reservations.
Now she thinks the virus may just end up being one of the best things for her organisation, as it finally forced her to launch her online shop.
There’s a 100- seat high tea store that’s relied on delivering picnic packs and cake boxes.
A big Instagram-friendly cafe that has actually changed its focus to takeaway toasties.
A kids’s dressmaker who is doing marketing work for other small companies.
A clothes shop making washable face masks. A publican with no consumers to serve.
A bridal dressmaker who’s instead producing dress for doctors.
And a gym, where the earnings is down 90 percent but they’re attempting to keep their customers’ mot