COVID crushed this Charlotte uptown retailer’s business. But online sales rocketed.

A year after the coronavirus pandemic began, one Charlotte business owner closed her uptown retail shop and restaurant to focus on what’s been successful — online shopping.

Zia Pia Imports and Italian Kitchen at 7th Street Public Market didn’t reopen for indoor dining and shopping after being ordered to close more than a year ago because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

But as foot traffic stopped, online sales soared. It increased so much that Zia Pia moved out of the storefront in January and into a warehouse last month to accommodate the growth.

Last year, owner Victoria Custodi said she continued taking online orders with local free delivery of prepared foods, meal kits and imported foods like pasta, rice, balsamic vinegar and chocolate.

“It was a hard decision to leave,” Custodi said in a recent interview with the Observer. “The mission of the market is to be a small biz incubator and that’s absolutely true for us. Being there helped us a lot, giving us space to grow has been invaluable.”

The public market is a nonprofit started about a decade ago with staff support from Center City Partners, Dan Murrey, board chair of the market, said in a previous interview with the Observer.

The biggest factor for closing the storefront, Custodi said, was lack of uptown foot traffic as corporate employees work from home and events uptown were canceled because of the coronavirus. The kitchen sales dropped 76% last year compared to the previous year, Custodi said.

The pandemic, she said, “flipped everything on its head.”

Online sales soared

Where retail been had been growing before the pandemic, Zia Pia’s wholesale and online business accelerated with sales up by 256% last year, Custodi said. Custodi attributes that growth to more people cooking at home and trying more specialty foods.

Zia Pia’s online sales surge wasn’t an anomaly. Consumer online spending was up 44% last year during the pandemic compared to 2019 with U.S. retailers, according to a Digital Commerce 360 analysis.

So far, the Charlotte company’s sales are up more than 25% this year compared to the same time last year.

Last month, Zia Pia Imports moved into a 5,000-square-foot warehouse and office space at 3412 Monroe Road in Charlotte to accommodate the online demand. It provides more space for inventory and working to package and ship boxes, as well as receiving, Custodi said.

“We started off as an importing and distribution company, so our food service was a departure from our core identity,” she said.

Zia Pia’s roots

Custodi started Zia Pia in 2013 as a direct importer.

She has a master’s in international business from the University of South Carolina and a background in marketing. The mother of a 12-year-old daughter, Custodi is fluent in Italian, Spanish and French. She lived in Italy and New York City while working in marketing before moving to Charlotte in 2006.

After introductions with a supplier in Italian food products in her Aunt Pia’s home of Orvieto, Umbria, Zia Pia launched in 2013.

“I set up the business and a website and began selling online,” she said. She also presented the foods to local stores and restaurants, and sold direct in farmer’s markets.

Custodi opened the retail stand at the market in 2015 and expanded in 2017, adding a kitchen with daily lunch and dinner service.

Before the pandemic, Custodi had about 11 full- and part-time employees. Now she has three full-time workers, plus contractors.

Custodi said most of Zia Pia Imports’ buyers are from outside of the Charlotte area, shipping to customers throughout the Carolinas; Denver, Colorado; California; Florida; New York and Texas.

She said online and wholesale trends show those areas have more Italian heritage and more focus on specialty foods concepts like Zia Pia’s. But, Custodi said, it’s possible Zia Pia could sell prepared foods again, or even reopen a retail store in the future.

“In this particular moment the way things are it makes sense for us to focus on the wholesale and online component,” Custodi said. “That’s where the momentum is.”