Sue Phillips owns two dry cleaning businesses - one in locked-down Wollongong and the other in Kiama.
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But you'd be wrong if you thought the Kiama outlet was the one doing better.
"It's dead," Ms Phillips said of the Kiama store.
"It's absolutely died. We're only opening for three hours, from 9 till 12 when it's normally open 8 til 5. We're actually taking work from here down there for that very reason - because they've got no work to do."
The reason for the Kiama slowdown is that the dry cleaning work was coming from holiday rental accommodation - with no-one able to head south for holidays, there's no bookings and therefore nothing to clean.
Which doesn't mean things are normal at the Wollongong store on Kembla Street - on Thursday just three workers were there when there would normally be eight.
"Some of the regulars still do come in, she said.
"We still do NDIS work - we go pick up their stuff bring it here and do it and we get a fair bit of hospital stuff."
Something she said she's not getting is help from the government. While the NSW government has launched COVID assistance grants through Service NSW, Ms Phillips said it's been so hard to get anywhere.
"I've not got a penny from the government. I go down there [to the Service NSW office] but you can't get in the front door. They tell you to phone and the number takes you ages to get through and then they tell you a concierge will call you within 48 hours."
She said she'd spoken to them on July 27 and, as of Thursday, was still waiting for that call.
"You can't get to talk to anyone, you can't get to talk to a human being. You just press bloody buttons all the time," she said.
On top of that, unlike last year's lockdown, she said there hadn't been any offer of reduced rent and that it felt getting any help in general was just so difficult.
Some businesses will have it easier than others. Cafes, which tended to see a fair chunk of their business being takeaway coffees in the good times, can still offer that.
Though it's likely suburban coffee shops are doing better while people stay at home and duck down the road for their coffees.
Anecdotally, newsagents are managing well - people still want to buy their lottery tickets. There's also been a rise in sales of greeting cards as people send their best wishes to each other now they can't meet in person.
But for other businesses, the lockdown poses some struggles and challenges.
Like the Kembla Street dry cleaner, rent is also an issue for Joseph King Jewellery in the mall, where owner Robert Dogan has kept the doors open despite having to remove the necklaces and rings from the displays.
"We haven't seen any easing of rents," Mr Dogan said.
"That is where it gets a bit difficult. We have to pay rent but you're down by 80 per cent in people coming into your store. Your business is down 80 per cent but you're still paying the same rent.
"A rent reduction would be great because then you could just put that into your business and pull through."
The Crown Street Mall store is open so people can pick up online orders; that's a part of the business he has had to develop from scratch.
While it is a necessity during the current lockdown, Mr Dogan said the move online was made with an eye to the future.
"We think if something else happens down the track and we have to close up again we'll have that online back-up ready to go," he said.
Mr Dogan acknowledged that jewellery is a more personal purchase, where online shopping doesn't always work. For instance, the lockdown has ended the sale of engagement rings for the time being.
"We specialise in engagement rings but now we've had to pull back a little bit," he said.
"With engagement rings, people want to come in. They want to sit down, they want to talk with you about it and see something and that makes it really difficult for us."
The bulk of their online purchases are from people who already know what they want and found it at the Joseph King site. Still, he said it will take some a while to warm up to the idea of buying jewellery with the click of a mouse.
"We're just seeing how it is but the Australian market is a little funny for jewellery," he said.
"For any item people know and understand it's easy to click and buy and they're happy, but the things they aren't familiar with well, they won't buy as quickly."
The click and collect approach has been much easier for the Wollongong outlet of ZiNG pop culture store.
Located in Wollongong Central, store manager Mitchel Szczerbanik said the store had been locked down from the end of the recent school holidays.
From there the absence of foot traffic meant they had to move to online sales for their t-shirts, comics, trading cards, games and toys.
"It started off slow, there was only a couple of hundred dollars a day from click and collect," he said.
"But after a while people found out that they could go online and order from us, it's been improving every day."
And of course, a game or a Star Wars toy, might be just the thing to provide a little happiness while being stuck at home.
"It's important for people to still have some fun while they're at home," Mr Szczerbanik said.
"We sell a lot of fun items so I think they realise they're a little bit bored and then they find out they can buy those things online."
Keira Street record store Music Farmers has had the doors closed since June and, like last year, has reverted to online sales with free local delivery in the Illawarra area.
"It was just to keep stuff going," co-owner Jeb Taylor said.
"In normal times our online sales are probably 5 per cent of what our business is but you look for any way you can to boost it up a little bit until the doors are actually open again."
Taylor said the home delivery can capture those music fans who know exactly what records they want, but is prone to missing the browsers.
A decent segment of the Music Farmers market, Taylor said they would turn up to the shop with no idea of what they want - until they find it in the racks.
In addition to the store, Taylor looks after the Music Farmers record label with partner Nick Irwin and the Farmer and the Owl label with the guys from Yours and Owls.
The lockdown has had an effect on those labels as well, with release dates up in the air due to the temporary closure of pressing plants.
So the musical flow-on effect from the lockdown will likely be a delay in record releases.
"There has definitely been changes in release dates, but it's more the stuff that we haven't actually announced yet," Taylor said.
"We're really holding out until we know we can get something out there properly before we do release date announcements and stuff like that."
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