Three years after the lockdown began, there were young companies and projects that managed to overcome the pandemic

It was March 16, 2020, Monday evening. The national chain announced in Ecuador the beginning of the closure due to COVID-19, which until then claimed the lives of 7,000 people in the world and two in Ecuador. No one could have imagined what the coming months would bring to the country.

Economically, the pandemic hit hard and 2,069 companies failed to withstand the onslaught and closed that year, most between March and May due to restrictions, according to data from the Companies Supervisory Board. This Friday, March 17, marks three years since that announcement that changed the outlook for many companies. However, some who had just started taking their first steps before the pandemic managed to survive and 1095 days later are in “good health”.

100 days of quarantine left 5.807 million dollars in losses in trade across the country

One of these companies is Miniso, a chain of Japanese origin that had three stores in operation almost eight months after landing in Ecuador until the closure began. The last of these three facilities opened on February 15, 2020 at the Mall del Sol in Guayaquil, less than a month after the closure began.

Pablo José Acosta, president of the board of Miniso Ecuador, remember that the first establishment opened on July 27, 2019 in Quito, after 18 months of painstaking negotiations to bring the franchise to the country and conduct various market studies.

Acosta catalogs the company’s situation at the time as a “black panorama.”

“In just over seven months, the entire initial plan was changed. In October 2019, we suffered terrible losses due to the indigenous strike in Quito, and a few months later (March 2020) there was a closure due to the coronavirus pandemic,” recalls Acosta, who assures that the store is closed, with his partner and cousin Simón . Acosta They used WhatsApp to sell combinations of their products.

Another strategy was the development and implementation of his channel e-commerce, a project that should have been moved four years in advance, because it was supposed to start in 2024.

“With all these strategies to mitigate the impact of the pandemic, a much more conservative plan was established and we decided that the expansion in terms of the number of stores should go slower than planned when we brought the franchise brand to Ecuador,” reveals Acosta.

After the main restrictions were lifted, as of October 2020, they continued to open stores mainly in Guayaquil and Ambat, with an average of one every four months.

After three years of opening and with the included pandemic, Miniso already has eleven stores in Quito, Guayaquil and Ambat. It will open two more stores in Guayaquil next May and plans four new stores in the second half of the year in other areas.

“The expansion plan does not stop and starting this year we are looking for the sale of sub-franchises so that entrepreneurs from all over the country can open a Miniso store in their city. So we hope to close the year 2023 with a minimum of 17 stores”, says the entrepreneur.

Clare Bonnard, CEO and founder of developer A’Lure Internationalhe also had to be recursive to save his Torres de la Costa project, located 11.5 km down the road to the coast, which consists of four residential towers with a total of 108 two- and three-bedroom units, whose construction began in July 2019 .but after seven months he was paralyzed by the pandemic.

This project is “the lost son that we had to face with the pandemic,” says the entrepreneur.

Supermarkets made a net profit amid the pandemic

Remember that the construction company was paralyzed for about three months, but the investor did not need to be physically present to continue their promotional and marketing efforts, so they decided not to stop.

“Our economy was uncertain, the flow and profits of our project were threatened and most importantly, our market was changing with the pandemic. But even so, I think we knew how to react and quickly”, thinks the businesswoman who has developed strategies to protect closed sales and promote new ones.

At the administrative level, they continued to work from home to remain productive.

In the meantime, on a financial level, they refinanced supplier payments and agreed new payment terms with colleagues.

“During the most difficult months, which were April and May, they received 100 percent of their variable wages, but only 50 percent of their fixed wages, and our managers only worked with variable wages, without fixed wages,” reveals Bonnard, who assures that this is how it managed to take care of the company’s flow so that it could cover basic needs, take care of jobs and have the necessary funds to implement a commercial strategy that was based on an alliance with Satori, a digital communication consultancy constituted by Joshua Bonnard in February 2020, just a month and a half before the pandemic.

A’Lure International and Satori belong to the same family group, Grupo Bonnard, but are independent, says the director and founder of the real estate company, who recalls that they developed an empathy campaign for the general public.

“We join the campaign of staying at home and social distancing. At the same time, we launched digital guidelines for leads to attract potential clients and inform them either via WhatsApp, phone or video conferencing”, explains Bonnard, who points out that as a result more than 60% of his clients continued to pay, after offering them payment solutions without leaving home, via transfer or withdrawal payments to their homes with safe behavior and with all biosecurity protocols.

227,037 people under the age of 40 lost their jobs in Ecuador between March and July due to the COVID-19 pandemic

The campaign ran for about three months, from the end of March to the end of June, and generated close to 700 leads and nearly $2 million in sales.

“We did it! We met the half-year goal for 2020 despite going through the global pandemic,” points out Bonnard, who reveals that A’Lure International is to date completing its commercialization phase in Torres de la Costa and preparing for its next project. Satori also continues to be active with new clients after the pandemic.

However, there were also businesses that did not reopen, but the iconic spaces that remained empty are now home to new projects, such as the Gran Chef restaurant that closed after being closed due to the pandemic.

On the land on which he operated for about fifteen years, from 2005 to 2020, and which for the last three years had no commercial activity, is now preparing for a new business, the location of Supercines, a chain of entertainment facilities managed by Corporación El Rosado, which currently has 22 complex and 174 rooms across the country.