TUCSON, Ariz. — Creative Kind has been in business in Tucson for five years. Located inside La Encantada, and known as a hub for DIY projects and personalized gifting ideas, it was yet another local business that had to majorly pivot when the pandemic hit.
“Earlier this year we were making a lot of big plans. We felt like we had finally gotten into a really good footing with our space at the mall, we moved into our more permanent space last June. And we were planning for a really big year, looking at expanding,” said co-owner Theresa Delaney.
As a small business vendor, where the personal touch was so important, Creative Kind was able to turn around their original business model. Adding Zoom workshops and events and gifting boxes to send in the mail.
“We're kind of embracing it and seeing it as an opportunity for us to expand our model and not just as a response to COVID, but something that can move forward, however the future looks with or without a pandemic,” said Delaney.
With the holiday season approaching ,the small business is working on having ideas like stocking-stuffers and personal ways to gift wrap presents. It’s also creating ideas to get folks into doing something different than what’s been done over these past few months.
“This is usually our biggest time of year for events. We can do like a dozen wreath workshops during the fall and winter. Um, it was a hard one to do online because we source the greenery and all the supplies. It's a hard one to do on your own, but I think we'll see people maybe doing more of the private workshops that way and having just their family come in and do it,” said Delaney.
They’ve been going through ideas to help make it easy to shop with them, a small local business, as opposed to one of the larger big box retailers.
“Amazon is going to be just fine. I buy from Amazon when I need to, like, do what you need to do, but consider even half the items you would have purchased my big box looking for from a local option, because they're out there. And a lot of them won't be around next year if this holiday season doesn't go well,” said Delaney.
That money you spend on local businesses comes back around and can benefit the community.