The year 2020 started with the expectation that the world will move at an increased pace. The world was buzzing with innovation and growth of both small and large-scale businesses but something initiated in China in January, 2020. It was then confirmed an epidemic in China towards the start of February, 2020. Since then the world is in COVID-19 pandemic phase.

The world faced an unexpected lockdown for nearly a year. The disease persists and there wouldn't be a vaccine for another year. The lockdown affected everyone in one way or another especially the economy and small businesses.

Large businesses such as industries, brands, and others who are generating a great deal of income usually keep an amount can keep them stable even in times of crisis, but small businesses do not have such plans or strategies. So, the pandemic affects small businesses.

Reshaping of Small Businesses:
The pandemic started almost seven months ago, and it has reshaped the small business to a giant extent. Keeping a road map in our mind about the changes the small businesses faced from the pandemic, we determined the following points.

The first challenge faced by almost all the businesses, schools, universities, and transport was the closings. There was a complete lockdown in the beginning. Small businesses were benefitting from their daily sales and the closings were the first thing that directly attacked them.

The businesses related to food and edible which are in daily use got the safer side as they were left open to keep the situation stable among the people during the time of crisis. Those which were not related to food faced the complete shutdown.

Downsizing is a technique that helps businesses to keep the balance by firing the employees in a time of crisis. The closure affected small businesses badly. Mostly the small businesses are running on rental buildings or places and they have to pay the expenses irrespective of the profit.

The second important thing is that they have to pay their employees out of their weekly or monthly incomes. As the pandemic shattered down, the weekly and monthly incomes so the small businesses compulsively apply the technique of downsizing. This made unemployment more common.

Small businesses have a small budget to fulfill their expenses to begin with. The pandemic then added more to their expenses. All the businesses and public places need sanitizer and masks for their employees. Places are sanitized too.

During the pandemic, there was shortage of sanitizer in the market and their increased demand made them a little expensive and rare to get. So, the small businesses even after their re-openings had to go through increased expenses for after the SOPs.

After the pandemic has emerged worldwide, the alarming situation still exist and there is no area which declared Corona free so people around the globe are still worried and they are avoiding going out often. This has given another break down to small businesses.

As all the small businesses are not related to food or of items that are in daily use, they have faced very little sales due to the Coronavirus. People are also afraid of spending money on things that are in their last wish as no one is sure about when the second wave of COVID-19 invades the world back.

As the wave of the pandemic started, there was an intense increase in the demands for surgical face masks, N95 masks, and sanitizer. All of these items are not hard to make and they don't need the industry to assemble their ingredients or fabrics. So, it is a temporary yet a huge opportunity for the business dreamer or owners to start making these items and selling them in the market. They also introduced protective shields and surgical gloves for the safety of people.

Although the Coronavirus pandemic has affected all of us badly, at the same time, it has provided few opportunities to businesses in the time of need.

Conclusion:

COVID-19 has affected almost everyone in the world but the most affected in the markets are people who are running small businesses.

In the article above we have mentioned the effects being faced by the small businesses one by one. They have faced closures, downsizing of the employees which affected the people around them but they have created opportunities too.