Bronze 1 Tanning Salon dealing with pandemic as a seasonal business

Kerrie Gavin has been fighting for the survival of her business in 2020, while also undergoing treatment for breast cancer.

“I will do absolutely everything in my power to stay in business. We have been here for 37 years so it’s going to take a lot more than COVID to shut us down. I will do absolutely everything. I’m working every hour here that I can,” said Gavin, the owner of Bronze 1 Tanning Salon in Saskatoon.

“I just finished chemotherapy so I was behind the eight-ball to start with because I did over a year of chemo. I’m working when I probably shouldn’t be, but I’ll do everything I possibly can to keep us going until this ends.”

She continued, “It’s been a real struggle for the last year, between cancer and COVID. It’s been a struggle.”

Like many other businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic, hers has been bearing the brunt of restrictions and shutdowns due to the illness.

With the tanning salon, her business is directly tied to travel, which has nearly been non-existent during the pandemic.

“We do 85 per cent of our business in this quarter. Everybody that goes to Mexico or goes to Hawaii comes to get their tan so that they can safely sit in the sun and enjoy their holidays. With the travel restrictions being as they are and quarantine when you get home, we’re just seeing such a decline in our services at this time,” Gavin said.

“Because we’re so seasonal, it’s a year from now that I look forward to seeing the same faces come through the door, when they’re able to travel again and I get to see the same customers that we’ve seen for 10, 12 years.”

She said in-store visits have dropped to about 25 per cent of what they were prior to COVID. When it comes to sales, they’ve been doing a little better thanks to local support but it is still under half of what it was before.

Gavin says they have added services like a cocoon and red light therapy and have tried to bring in a number of moisturizers and lotions. But it’s not all good news.

“It’s a vicious circle. You need customers to pay the bills, you need money to buy new services. It’s just a terrible state we’re in. We’ve tried everything in our power to bring in more moisturizers or different little jewelry and things of that nature, but when you don’t have the traffic coming in, you’re not making those sales,” Gavin said.

Christmas has also not provided much help for the salon yet.

“With travel being such a major thing, probably 20 per cent of our business was people travelling for Christmas and we’re not seeing that right now so it is a very scary time for us right now and all business owners,” Gavin said.

She has looked into government programming to help out her business, but points out if it’s a loan from the government, she’s not sure how they would be able to pay it back.

“I don’t want to sound unappreciative. I appreciate what the government is trying to do. However, it is not something that would be helpful for me,” Gavin said.