06/01/2024
It's unfortunate that another business closed due to the coronavirus pandemic and the construction going on.
We wish Nearly New best wishes and what they well do next.
Hello again everybody,
Today is a very sad day for me. I realized that I cannot continue to pay money out of my pocket to work here at Nearly New 7 days a week. (YES, I do work on my days off.) I really don't think that anyone in the community realizes how dire the situation was for me to actually ask for help and start a GoFundMe account. If it weren't dire, I definitely would have continued trying to pay for everything myself. That is the way I am, and the way I've always been.
I do appreciate the donations that were made, but unfortunately, they were not even remotely close to what the goal was. We had $1105.00 donated on GoFundMe, out of the $65,000 goal. We did have a few people who donated outside of GoFundMe, but it still wasn't enough.
Due to the lack of sales, the insufficient support on our GoFundMe page, and the fact that all of Walton Street is currently closed down, Nearly New will begin the process of closing the store as of tomorrow, May 31, 2024. We will be offering Going out of Business discounts on everything owned by Nearly New, and some consignment items, starting tomorrow. Everything in the store (excluding some consignment items) will have a discount of 20% off from opening time Friday until closing time on Thursday of next week. On Friday of next week, we will have a larger discount, and the discounts will continue to become larger until we have cleared out everything in the store. At that point, we will have to also clear out the shelving and other display counters.
If everyone continues to stay away because of the construction, we will have to find another option to get all of this stock cleared out. I really hope it doesn't come down to that, but I understand that this construction is very hard to navigate through.
I do wish that this closure did not have to happen, but it cannot be helped. I am drowning financially, and I do not see an end to it. This store did quite well before the government's handling of Covid 19 destroyed most of the small businesses in Canada. The closures that we faced made people get used to ordering from Amazon and other online retailers. Now, quite a few people all across Canada, still seem to be ordering online, and forgetting that there are retail stores around them. In Port Hope, a town of 16,000 people, the amount of Amazon deliveries I see, just in the downtown core, is absolutely astounding. No wonder the Amazon owner is the 2nd richest person on the planet.
The government told everyone that they were helping small businesses through the tough times, but they did not. They made it very hard for any small businesses to get any grants or loans. I did not qualify for ANY of the loans or grants at all.
The store did quite well before all of that, but I can't seem to revive it. I have tried, and the trials have put me into substantial debt. I even tried opening another store in a more populated area, and that was all financed through credit. That was the worst decision I have made so far. I just kept losing more and more money each month, and I had to close it after just over a year.
I have tried auctions to boost the finances, but I just basically gave away a whole bunch of products there. Auctions are a good way to get rid of things, but not a good way to boost your finances.
Anyway, I just want to thank everybody who supported Nearly New through the years, everyone who did try their best to support us through all of the trying times, and the people who donated to the cause. Closing the store really makes me feel bad for all of these people, but I am not able to continue this way. It would take a miracle to reverse the aftermath of the last 4 years.
Thanks for reading my rant, and sorry.
Gary @ Nearly New