Well, THAT was a year! Phew!
Like all of you, I'm looking forward to a happier, healthier 2021, but I wanted to pause to give thanks to our community for all the support you gave Red Dot Running Company and our team in 2020.
You don't need me to recap the year for you – we'll all be remembering it for decades without much fondness – but for many businesspeople, 2020 was a catastrophe, and many businesses did not survive. I'm confident most of those businesses will be back in another form (you can't keep a good entrepreneur down!), but the disruption and financial and personal stress were enormous, I know.
Here at RDRC things were no different. In March we faced a huge amount of uncertainty, and we had to make decisions quickly – to conform to newly issued public health regulations, of course, but more importantly to ensure the safety of our staff and our customers and the community. This meant we closed our physical premises before the government said we had to, and we started working immediately on ways in which we could continue to support your training and your health.
We were lucky in Singapore that we could continue to exercise out-of-doors, and for many of us that was an important mental health lifeline. That also allowed RDRC to continue in business. You still needed shoes, and shorts (and T8 Commandos under them!) and hats and nutrition products. Hiking poles and hydration packs maybe not so much, but we're hopeful you'll be back on the mountain trail during the second half of 2021!
So I'm very grateful you continued to come to us for your endurance sport needs. I'm grateful you were understanding when we struggled with the main commercial courier services to get you your orders in a timely manner. I'm grateful we were able to work with furloughed and laid-off members of our community who launched their own courier services, so we could get you your orders in a socially distanced manner, faster than the big courier services, while supporting members of our community who were trying to make ends meet.
I'm grateful for your patience when we occasionally got things wrong, because we were implementing a massive shift in our business model (bricks and mortar sales were at zero there for awhile; online was 100%) and learning the best ways to pick orders, pack them, connect them to our couriers, and confirm that you were getting the things you needed.
We tried hard. We did the best we could. And most important, none of us got sick, and there was no COVID-19 illness in our endurance sport community as a result of our business activity. Way back in March 2020 that was my greatest fear – that someone would get sick because we weren't careful enough.
That's enough for today, I think. You get the idea: I'm grateful to you and to the new friends you introduced to RDRC (and to the sports we love!), and I'm grateful to everyone who contributes to the success of RDRC (our staff, ambassadors, suppliers and partners) and to making our customers feel cared for.
We DO care. RDRC has never been *just* a business to me. It was and is a way to foster community among endurance athletes here in our Little Red Dot and beyond. Thank you again and let's kick ass in 2021!
Jeri