I am not one to look at adversity as a negative. I can certainly remember adversity bringing Kona Impact to the precipe of failure, but each time–there were two big ones in our history–we were able to right the ship and carry on and become something better than before.
Perhaps the worst part of 2020 was seeing many local businesses and workers suffer tremendous, and for some insurmountable losses. We lost many restaurants, several tour operators, many retail outlets, and every business connected to them in any way suffered as well.
Kona Impact’s tourism-related business went to zero in the spring and has slowly, though not vigorously returned. We know, though, that we had a much better year than many of our clients.
Here are a few of the 2020 positives for Kona Impact:
- Online Sales Went Crazy (in a good way) A big part of our services revenue comes from online sales. We saw a doubling of online sales since March.
- Our Customer Base Grew We did a lot more local marketing this year, with some mail, print, and online ads, which resulted in solid growth in local customers
- A New Website We spent many tens of hours re-invigorating and re-designing our website. Because of this, we have grown our online visibility and have attracted a lot of projects from off-island businesses.
- New Equipment We invested in a new UV flatbed printer. This has allowed us to be more efficient making some products and offer a huge range of new products. We now have two wide-format printers and 24 x 18 bed UV flatbed printer. No shop on the island matches our capabilities.
- New Products Because of our new UV flatbed printer, we can now do a lot of customized products, including printed golf balls, tumblers, stemless wine glasses, awards, and more. We expect these products to grow our top line by 10-15% next year.
As we come to the end of 2020, we are looking forward to 2021 with cautious optimism. Though it may not be a great winter or spring, we think that the second half of 2021 will be very good for the Kona business community and the employees who work here.
As for Kona Impact, we will continue to innovate our services and products in the new year and beyond. If you’d like us to be part of your 2021 growth strategy, give us a call at 329-6077.
