22/09/2019
IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT
I have some bad news for everyone.
After thinking long and hard, it's with a heavy heart that I made the final decision that The Shire will be closing down slowly over the month of October.
The reasoning behind this decision is a combination of small factors, with the biggest and most important one being the economy getting worse and worse with each passing day since the start of 2019, to a degree where the store is only earning 10% of what it used to in the same time period in the previous 3 years. It’s outside of my hands and no matter what I do, it’s impossible for me to fix the economy or the country.
On 1/1/2016, I decided to open The Shire to give Nabatieh and South Lebanon the kind of store that people wanted but thought they didn’t deserve for living in a part of the country where they are looked at as a lower class of people. The type of store you’d only find in expensive areas in Beirut or outside the country. This store was the biggest risk I took, since back then I was the second store in the entire country of this kind. But the risk paid off soon after as the business grew and grew over the next 3 years. Then the downfall of our economy happened and my business has been barely staying open over the last 9 months.
It was a really hard decision for me to make, to let go of everything I built over the last 4 years of sweat and blood, but I must move on and work towards the future.
In the end, I would like to thank you: everyone who supported me over the years, all my loyal customers, all the people who kept telling me how crazy I am for starting this business and all the people who drove for hours from all over the country to visit and support my business. I will miss you guys and all the good times we had.
And a little bit of good news to cheer you up:
• You get the chance to get discounted goods from The Shire before it’s closed down!
• My partner store since day 1, Velvet-Sun will be helping me out by taking over my store’s merchandise.
• My friends at Multiverse Games Beirut are a similar store to The Shire and sell stuff like board games and card games, so you will still have a place in the country to get similar things from.
Make sure to check out their pages and give them a visit when possible, and thank you for reading.
