While many busi­ness­es fo­cus on sur­viv­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, Fer­reira Op­ti­cal and Trin­pad are ex­press­ing con­fi­dence in T&T’s eco­nom­ic re­cov­ery, open­ing new out­lets in­side Massy Su­per­centre in Gulf View.

In a unique move, both com­pa­nies now oc­cu­py spaces which once held Massy’s Fur­ni­ture and Ap­pli­ances sec­tion.

Fer­reira Op­ti­cal has eight branch­es, and the Massy Su­per­centre out­let is a re­lo­ca­tion from Gulf City Mall.

At yes­ter­day’s launch, Fer­reira Op­ti­cal’s CEO Loren­zo Hodges said it was a cost-ef­fec­tive move as Massy Stores of­fered a com­pet­i­tive rental pack­age and the lo­ca­tion en­sures high traf­fic.

He ex­plained that dur­ing the ini­tial shut­down, malls stayed closed for months dur­ing the gov­ern­ment’s COVID-19 mea­sures and fear of con­tract­ing the virus led some peo­ple to stay away. How­ev­er, su­per­mar­kets re­main an es­sen­tial ser­vice, and with the un­pre­dictabil­i­ty of the pan­dem­ic, the new lo­ca­tion en­sures peo­ple will be in and around the out­let.

“Look­ing in­to the fu­ture, we see com­merce and con­sumer be­hav­iour shift­ing sig­nif­i­cant­ly. What we had to do was go to where our cus­tomers are. What the pan­dem­ic has done is show that where re­tail is con­cerned, malls are volatile. Spe­cif­ic to COVID-19, malls were de­fined as nonessen­tial, and that is not unique to Trinidad. If you look at all of our malls across Trinidad, they have been sig­nif­i­cant­ly im­pact­ed, with them com­ing down to 40 and 50 per cent oc­cu­pan­cy in terms of the busi­ness­es that are there. Less and less per­sons are go­ing to malls,” Hodges said.

As many busi­ness­es suf­fer low rev­enues, Hodges said Fer­reira Op­ti­cal is for­tu­nate as their cus­tomers re­main loy­al.

Hav­ing to close in April along with the re­tail sec­tor, he said this year is fi­nan­cial­ly chal­leng­ing. With lim­it­ed rev­enue, the com­pa­ny had to find ways to cut costs and want­ed to do that with­out cut­ting staff. The re­lo­ca­tion was one such way, and Hodges said they are now on the re­cov­ery path.

How­ev­er, he ad­mits the econ­o­my re­mains un­cer­tain amidst the pan­dem­ic.

In the mean­time, the com­pa­ny’s fo­cus is pro­vid­ing qual­i­ty ser­vice for pro­vid­ing pro­tec­tive, ca­su­al and pre­scrip­tion eye­wear and ex­am­i­na­tion of eyes to en­sure cus­tomer sat­is­fac­tion and loy­al­ty.

Even that is a chal­lenge as the pan­dem­ic has changed con­sumer be­hav­iours: some peo­ple are choos­ing not to in­ter­act with the pub­lic while oth­ers are los­ing their jobs.

Hodges ex­plained: “As cus­tomers have re­spond­ed to the pan­dem­ic, there are a cou­ple of things that have im­pact­ed our cus­tomer base.

“One is peo­ple have lost jobs, and so we’ve seen cas­es where cus­tomers booked an ap­point­ment and even start­ed jobs with us. Then they call and say ‘lis­ten, I just lost my job’. That is a re­al thing. Peo­ple are hurt­ing, and of course, it trou­bles us that peo­ple are hurt­ing.”

The com­pa­ny is re­spond­ing by of­fer­ing more af­ford­able pack­ages.

Trin­pad en­ters re­tail mar­ket

Trin­pad, a di­vi­sion of Of­fice Au­thor­i­ty is con­fi­dent of an eco­nom­ic turn around as it ven­tures in­to the re­tail in­dus­try.

Ex­ec­u­tive chair­man An­gel­la Per­sad said the com­pa­ny sees yes­ter­day’s open­ing as a launch­ing pad for its re­tail di­vi­sion in T&T. 

“It is some­thing we’ve been think­ing about for a long time. As a mat­ter of fact, this jour­ney start­ed five years ago. We were talk­ing to Massy five years ago about this idea, so it is not a new idea. It is the nat­ur­al pro­gres­sion for our busi­ness be­cause re­tail is a for­ward in­te­gra­tion of the busi­ness­es we are al­ready in­volved.”

Trin­pad pre­vi­ous­ly op­er­at­ed as a man­u­fac­tur­er, print­er and a dis­trib­u­tor of sta­tionery, of­fice sup­plies and busi­ness equip­ment. The store now al­lows cus­tomers an­oth­er way of get­ting per­son­al prints on pho­tographs, books and tex­tures. Al­so, the store has sta­tionery and gifts.

Per­sad ad­mit­ted her com­pa­ny took a big gam­ble in ex­pand­ing dur­ing the pan­dem­ic. How­ev­er, she said there is a lot of en­ter­prise and courage. She said the op­por­tu­ni­ty pre­sent­ed it­self and they grabbed it.

While schools are now on­line, Per­sad said stu­dents still re­quire sta­tionery and the store’s gift ideas are unique so the com­pa­ny be­lieves the risk would be worth­while.

She al­so be­lieves that soon, chil­dren will re­turn to the tra­di­tion­al school set­ting.