The Warehouse After the Boom

Spring arrived with the first flowers of the year.

Around that time, a gentleman named Mike came to our shop and ordered a large-format photograph. It was a beautiful image, but there was something more to it than beauty. The picture had a certain strength—a sense of movement and energy that made it particularly suitable for a large print.

While we were discussing the print, Mike told me that he had traveled to many parts of China. His business was importing sport bicycles from China.

A few months later, Mike came back to our shop. This time, he brought several more images to print. Among them was a photograph of his warehouse.

It was a very large warehouse.

We talked a little more about his business this time.

Mike told me that during the pandemic, his bicycles had sold extremely well. People seemed to have suddenly gained an extraordinary amount of purchasing power. Perhaps they had fewer places to spend their money, perhaps they had more time for outdoor activities, or perhaps bicycles simply became one of the things people wanted during those strange years.

Whatever the reason, the demand was so strong that things became almost absurd.

Orders from suppliers in China could take as long as a year to be completed.

So, like many businesses caught in a sudden boom, Mike ordered more.

Then the pandemic ended.

The situation changed.

People seemed to have less money to spend. The extraordinary demand for bicycles disappeared, but the bicycles that had already been ordered did not disappear with it.

They arrived.

And they had to go somewhere.

Into warehouses.

Mike now had a lot of bicycles sitting in storage, while the cost of maintaining that inventory continued to accumulate. At the same time, some of the Chinese suppliers he had worked with had stopped production or even gone bankrupt.

It was a strange reversal.

During the pandemic, the problem had been getting enough bicycles.

After the pandemic, the problem was having too many.

Listening to Mike, I suddenly thought about the photograph he had asked us to print earlier in the year. That first image had so much energy in it. It felt almost like an image of a world moving forward.

And then there was this photograph of the warehouse.

A huge space filled with things that had once been urgently needed.

Perhaps this is one of the quietest parts of running a business. From the outside, people often see the exciting part: the growing orders, the busy warehouse, the containers arriving, the customers coming in.

They don't always see what happens when the direction changes.

A successful business can sometimes become trapped by its own success.

When demand is rising, having more inventory looks like preparation. When demand suddenly falls, the same inventory can become a burden.

And a warehouse is a very honest place.

It doesn't care whether the bicycles were ordered during a boom or a recession. It doesn't care whether the supplier is still operating. It simply keeps charging rent.

Mike's story also reminded me of how connected our little shop in Saint-Henri can sometimes feel to the rest of the world.

A customer comes in for a photograph.

Then we talk.

A photograph leads to China.

China leads to bicycles.

Bicycles lead to a warehouse.

And a warehouse leads to the strange economic story of the pandemic and its aftermath.

None of this was planned when Mike walked through our door.

He simply wanted to print some pictures.

But sometimes a photograph is not just a photograph.

Sometimes, behind the picture, there is an entire business, a journey, a period of prosperity, and a difficult period that has not yet finished.

And sometimes, when I look at a large photograph hanging on a wall, I wonder what the picture doesn't show.

For Mike, perhaps it doesn't show the warehouse.