When COVID moved in last March 2020, followed by the first lockdown in April, many small businesses were forced to close and business owners were unsure of what was to come. For some leisure-based companies like bookstores, pool companies and hobby shops, sales came to a sudden halt and then unexpectedly picked up exponentially. âLast year in March business was very poor because we didnât know what was going to happen,â said Alain Gravel, director of marketing and publicity at Trevi. âWhen everything closed, we didnât have a transactional website, but people needed things like chemicals to open their pools, so we built one where we also could also give quotes virtually. When essential services opened in April and we were considered essential, we had lineups at all the stores. Our numbers were almost double and have been like that all year long, even last October, November, and December.â