Northland Businesses Prepare for School Year

Despite all the uncertainty, around the upcoming school year, Northland businesses are still seeing customers come in to get their kids ready for school.

DULUTH, Minn. – Despite all the uncertainty, around the upcoming school year, Northland businesses are still seeing customers come in to get their kids ready for school.

Businesses are preparing for the uptick in sales from both parents and students in preparation for the school year. For instance, at Boxtronics on Mountain Shadow Drive in Duluth, more and more people are coming in for maintenance for their devices, something that may get a lot more use for this year, depending on how much work students have to do virtually.

“People are starting to get in the process of wanting to get their devices up and running,” said Terry Stroik, the owner of Boxtronics. “We’re installing all the software for people and maintenance, people are updating their batteries, replace their batteries, changing old hard drives, whatever it may be.”

Boxtronics recently started its computer division within the store to keep up with demand before it focused solely on phone services. Owners say COVID has definitely helped the store with sales.

“With the fall season coming, with…knowing whether or not school is going to be in session or not, I think that what we think that what we do for a business, people are still going to need their computers, they’re still going to be on them to be learning, whether they’re in school or not in school,” said Stroik.

Meanwhile, at Zenith Bookstore on North Central Avenue, managers say the business has been getting a lot more bulk orders from schools and ordering books with diverse titles.

“We’ve seen a rise in kids’ books especially over the past few months with not as much to do, or school looking a little bit differently,” said Nikki Silvestrini, the manager at Zenith Bookstore. “There’s been a increase in middle grade, and YA and picture books especially.”

With school just around the corner, business leaders say they are doing their best to prepare students and parents for what’s to come, whatever that may be.