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Winthrop Mountain Sports has gone 40 years without the need to sell their outdoor gear online. Even the coronavirus pandemic has not changed its owners’ plans. But forest fires did.

Tourists flock to Winthrop, a few hours’ drive east of Seattle, to ski, hike, or drive through a beautiful stretch of the Cascade Mountains. Like many outdoor entertainment stores, sales Winthrop Mountain Sports was intact during most of the pandemic.

Marine Bjornsen, one of the owners of the store and a former elite biathlete and skiertold me that they currently have no plans to sell products online. “It was something we wanted to do, but we didn’t think we would do it this year,” he said. “Then the fires came.”

Last month, two major wildfires isolated from the world Winthrop and smothered the valley with smoke. The store remained open, but sold nothing more than discount boots and shirts to firefighters. Bjornsen said sales fell nearly 80 percent in July compared to the same month of previous years.

Less than two weeks ago, Winthrop Mountain Sports began selling products on its website to reach customers who may or may not be able to come to the store – at first gradually, with a few types of products to see how it goes. This tests Winthrop Mountain Sports what it’s like to launch an e-commerce site in 2021 in the twin crises of a pandemic and wildfires.

One of the issues I keep coming back to is the nuances that technology makes things both better and worse. business owners, a teacher, a rabbi and the rest of us. Selling online offers Bjornsen new opportunities to grow his business, but it also brings new loads and puts his store in direct competition with anyone who sells outdoor gear online, including giants like Amazon and REI.

The good news is that setting up an e-commerce site has never been easier. Bjornsen, who was indoors due to unhealthy weather, said he devoted his time to adding product photos and descriptions to the Winthrop Mountain Sports website.

It helped that the store already uses software from a company called Lightspeed to track inventory. If Bjornsen had sold 10 pairs of hiking boots in the store, he wouldn’t have accidentally tried to sell them online. It’s nothing fancy, no, but many small business owners simply don’t have the time, money, or expertise to get the basics of technology.

Bjornsen said he and his staff have learned how to run a store and an online business at the same time. For each online order, they must manually enter weights and dimensions, affix a shipping label, and remove the package via UPS or another service. Bjornsen said he left some orders at a delivery warehouse on his way home. He and his staff also talk to people who want to order online through questions.

Bjornsen said it’s too soon to know how the store’s finances might be affected if its sales shift from more personal selling to the internet. “This is a lot of work,” he said. “The margin will be less, but it’s better than not selling.”

Selling online allows the store to reach customers in new ways, and many expect to be able to buy online, but Winthrop Mountain Sports said it cannot survive as an online-only store. “We have a shop and a community around us,” he said.

sea ​​and Erik Bjornsen retired from skiing and moved from Alaska in December after they and others Purchased Winthrop Mountain Sports from its longtime owner. To put it mildly, it was an unpredictable period for running a retail store for the first time.

“If our business had been 10 years, then one summer didn’t seem like a big deal,” he said. “You can be a little more level. But it’s a little stressful because we don’t have it.” Bjornsen said he hopes “we’ll have a good winter and forget about it”.

Tip of the Week

Keeping your digital vaccination record

With more businesses mandating proof of vaccine against Covid-19, our consumer tech columnist Brian X Chen It shows the steps to save a digital vaccination record that you can easily access from your phone:

Here in California, I recently requested my digital vaccination record. California Department of Public Health. (The way to claim one varies from state to state – check your health department’s website for instructions.)

After I entered my information, I received a text message with a link to a QR code, a type of digital barcode containing information about my vaccination registration. From here I needed to figure out the best way to store the barcode on my phone.

The fastest method was to take a screenshot of the recording and add the image to a note. That way, I can find my vaccination record with a keyword search or by navigating my notes app.

Here’s how to do this:

On iPhones:

• When the image editing toolbar appears, tap the button in the upper right corner that looks like a square with an arrow pointing up. Scroll to and select the Notes application in the Applications row. Here, save the picture to a new note.

On Android phones:

(My colleague JD Biersdorfer, more tips on carrying proof of vaccination on a phoneand The Washington Post another helpful guide.)

Before you go …

• Eager to attend a business meeting in virtual reality? Mark Zuckerberg says it is. My colleague Mike Isaac try once and explained Facebook’s belief in VR and other “technology that gives you that sense of being.”

• Helping to inform Afghans at their own risk: rest of the world author It’s about a company called Ehtesab in Kabul that produces smartphone alerts to inform people about bomb explosions, barricades, power cuts and other problems. Founder Sara Wahedi worries that the nature of the service makes Ehtasab personnel targets for a Taliban crackdown.

• How do you prove an illegal monopoly? In June, a judge told the U.S. government that it must show evidence that Facebook has a significant share in social networks. The Federal Trade Commission reworked the antitrust case on Thursday, and my colleague Cecilia Kang notes That US law can be difficult to apply to areas of technology where sovereignty is not easy to define.

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