IT’S been a long two and a half years since the world was plunged into the maelstrom of Coronavirus, and one of the industries that suffered deeply and immediately was retail. Unlike food, clothes, and toilet paper, outdoor gear was a hobby spend and not considered essential to anybody for quite a while, especially since we weren’t allowed outdoors. As a consequence some retailers didn’t survive, but for those that did, things are finally looking up. Great Walks spoke to a couple of the largest independent outdoor retailers in the country to chat about how they’ve bounced back.
Neil Blundy, Owner, Bogong Equipment, Melbourne
How is business now compared to pre-pandemic?
We re-opened around 1st November. People were really quite cautious at first, so it wasn’t like opening the floodgates, but it built up by December and we had a really
