Tile City & Home Centre

7 BUSINESS VIEW CARIBBEAN VOLUME 9, ISSUE 5 freight forwarders, our local partners, we’ve had additional help to alleviate those stresses and we’re able to get that little extra push from our partners. A lot of these issues are outside of any individual’s control, so it’s really a team effort to stick to the timelines as best as possible to keep our supply chain going. Based on those partnerships and relationships we’ve seen everyone come together to work with us on managing the situation.” On the project development side of the business, hospitality and tourism was drastically affected by COVID. When the pandemic started, Tile City was in the middle of many projects in the hotel sector, at different stages, and quite a few of them completely stopped and were put on hold until near the end of 2021. The good news is that many of them are now starting to pick back up. “Travel restrictions are being removed and we see that area of the business bouncing back in a big way right now,” says Handal. “It was tough for the last two years but we’re optimistic going forward.” As for technology, like many businesses in Jamaica, Tile City & Home Centre had to pivot into ecommerce a little faster than they had planned. Jamaica as a whole was pushed toward online shopping and websites were quickly updated to accommodate people shopping from home due to COVID restrictions. According to Handal, “We launched our website in November of 2021, and we’ve had very good feedback from our customers and partners. We have a full ecommerce website – you can shop online, get your item delivered anywhere in Jamaica – and we’re seeing more people each day who are willing to make purchases on the website, many of our customers also find it useful to browse our catalog on the website before shopping in- person. The exciting outcome is that a large percentage of Tile City & Home Centre’s online purchases are coming from regions of Jamaica where they