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Anyone seeing a slowdown due to coronavirus?

iPrintStuff

Prints stuff
Due to the UK financial year ending this month, this is usually our busiest time of year. We’re still relatively busy but March usually takes in 3x any other month with all our corporate customers blowing their budgets. Currently it’s just on par for a normal month.

wondering if it’s down to the coronavirus or if we’re just quiet for this time of year?

(I’m refusing the cater to the idea that our corporate/government/education clients are just being sensible with their money).
 

rjssigns

Active Member
Lots of work on the books. Just waiting for official okey dokies on the work orders.
Have this weird feeling it will all hit at once.
 

Fred Weiss

Merchant Member
Can't say that it's because of coronavirus, but our online sales of digital art at half a dozen stock sites is down 50% to 75% of normal.
 

bannertime

Active Member
This has been our slowest start to a year in many, many years. I wouldn't associate it with the beer virus though. Sent out plenty of decent invoices, but lots of "we're still thinking about it" responses. I drove by one place and they put a banner in their 6x12 sign cabinet. Just like that banner, it's not lookin to great. Doesn't help that I'm personally burned out. One too many request for "what's the cheapest set of business cards you do?" I'm honestly about to make my minimum card order 10,000.
 

Joel golden

New Member
Election year with way too many tax proposals in the trillions of dollars being presented by the side that’s being promoted right now. I have some big purchases I can make and expand the business but I’m gonna wait it out a bit. My sales are down a bit month over month but still up 98% over last year so I’m good
 

Notarealsignguy

Arial - it's almost helvetica
We have been busy but our backlog is real slack and phone is quiet. Feels like were always a day away from having nothing to do. I don't think that its related to this as it started at the end of last year for us.
A decent amount of our work is for airlines too which will probably get dinged from the coronavirus. We didn't buy any equipment last year and have kind of been waiting for it to slow down some to get a deal on a few things.
 

Texas_Signmaker

Very Active Signmaker
This has been our slowest start to a year in many, many years. I wouldn't associate it with the beer virus though. Sent out plenty of decent invoices, but lots of "we're still thinking about it" responses. I drove by one place and they put a banner in their 6x12 sign cabinet. Just like that banner, it's not lookin to great. Doesn't help that I'm personally burned out. One too many request for "what's the cheapest set of business cards you do?" I'm honestly about to make my minimum card order 10,000.

Exactly what I'm seeing too. I have bids out there but fewer are putting down the deposit. So far I'm 75% of where I was this time last year. Seems like since the holidays I have yet to go back to "full throttle" . Price of oil isnt helping either.
 

Notarealsignguy

Arial - it's almost helvetica
Exactly what I'm seeing too. I have bids out there but fewer are putting down the deposit. So far I'm 75% of where I was this time last year. Seems like since the holidays I have yet to go back to "full throttle" .
I remember in 07 watching dodge reports for new projects. Piles of job starts that all just kept gettin pushed back over and over until finally canceled. We had 2 $8k jobs cancel this week, said they would be ready in a few weeks. All of the concrete companies we work with are jambed up right now so who knows.
 

GAC05

Quit buggin' me
One of our largest events of the year - The Guam Marathon just got pushed back to September.
Flights - hotels - ground transportation - restaurants - tours - all quiet now.
 

Bly

New Member
We're still busy but I think it may only be a matter of time until the slowdown in tourism and associated retail affects us.
We had a big finish to last year and solid start to 2020 so can't complain.
 

visual800

Active Member
Ive been dead since october of last year, not much progression going on in my area. My city even took planning commission meeting minutes off their website so you can tell whats being planned....not like thats making a difference. making some big changes this year reaching out beyond and beating bushes like the good ole days
 

signage

New Member
Quarantined signs are going to be the up and coming signs for 2020.
upload_2020-3-8_9-58-57.png
 

Bobby H

Arial Sucks.
We're still pretty busy here in Oklahoma. Knock on wood. We did have one confirmed COVID-19 case in Tulsa. Hopefully the numbers of coronavirus infections will stay low. Still the various precautions now being taken could have consequences. The SXSW festival in Austin was cancelled, which is a pretty serious short term blow that city's economy. Other large events like that could end up being cancelled. In my town we have a few different big community events coming up soon, such as a popular car show in a couple weeks. It wouldn't be good if they were cancelled. Even more serious is the potential for the daily routines of the general public to be disrupted. It's Sunday morning as of this writing. Lots of people like to go to church and then go eat lunch at local restaurants afterward. If the outbreak actually gets widespread activities like this could be stopped for a while. And that will hurt a lot of local businesses. We do a lot of things online, but much of our economy still depends on people getting out of their houses and buying goods or services from other people face to face. Our industry depends on all the businesses that need to advertise to those people who are leaving the house.
 

Stacey K

I like making signs
The weather is warming up in my area so that means people are out and about (WI). Last week I saw a big increase in orders and worked quite a few hours to stay on top of things. I was happy to do so because January and February were slow.

No Coronavirus in my area - I hope it stays that way!
 

WildWestDesigns

Active Member
We have had 3 confirmed cases here. The county schools have taken Friday and today off to do a "deep clean" before resuming.

Everything is going somewhat normally. I say somewhat, because there has been panic grocery store buying, but as far as business seems to be going, it's been normal for me this time of year. At least within a margin up or down that I give and still be "normal". It may hit here even more a little bit later. Hard to tell whats OTT and what is actually factual (if anything) that is being propagated through the news at times. Although, am prepared to pull the little ones and do home school if it comes to that. I have no problem going full blown hermit.

I am not holding my breath all that much on conferences this year. It may not be as bad as I'm thinking now, but I'm just not feeling it this year. What I do have to wonder is if we weather the spring well enough, what about the fall? Would there be a resurgence that we would have to worry about as well?
 
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