| Millions of American haircuts start among the tassel-topped cornfields of Sterling, Ill., two hours west of Chicago. That's where some 1,200 workers machine, assemble, and ship Wahl Clipper Corp.'s clippers and trimmers, which are to barber and beauty shops what Mac laptops are to graphic designers. Wahl, the default brand of buzzer, has market share up to 80 percent, depending on the particular device. Decades from now, MBA students may well be studying what happened at this company and in this little town of 15,000 people when Covid-19 swept across the heartland. There may be no better example of how violently a pandemic can mangle a microeconomy—or how businesses can survive and even thrive under such extraordinary conditions. First, there was the boom. I played a minor part, ordering a Wahl Chrome Pro Complete Haircutting Kit For Men on March 19. Just four days later, Wahl shuttered its Illinois factory. As barbershops and salons began to close for lockdowns, tens of millions of Americans faced the harrowing prospect of a DIY haircut. In a matter of days, orders from Wahl's retail partners—which include Amazon.com, Walmart, Costco, and about every grocery and pharmacy chain you can think of—tripled. With its production at a standstill, Wahl sold out of clippers by April 12, according to Vice President of Marketing Steven Yde. A week later, its beard buzzers and animal grooming products were gone, too. Anyone who says Americans have lost their nerve and ingenuity should know that in the darkest depths of the health crisis we were also pulling off tight-and-tidy fades with sheep shears. In one week, household penetration in the U.S. for Wahl's main product jumped from 48% to 58%. "Pretty much overnight, roughly 6 million Americans said, 'I've got to go out and buy a hair clipper,'" Yde explains. "That's pretty crazy." The cycle, however, wasn't all bullish. Wahl's orders from hair professionals, typically about one-third of its business, vanished overnight, as did demand from small and medium-size retailers, shuttered stores that lacked e-commerce. Meanwhile, rival products started trickling in from abroad where factories were still buzzing. In the face of historic demand—unlike any seen in its 101-years of operation—Wahl was actually losing market share. It had to get production back and then some. A skeleton crew of workers—all volunteers—trickled back into the Illinois factory on May 4. By July, Wahl started hiring pretty much any warm body it could find. Plant payroll swelled by 17%, with some employees driving two hours each way to punch in. Everyone was working overtime—lots of it. At the same time, Wahl tapped nonprofit partnerships to find ex-convicts and developmentally disabled people to pack boxes and fulfill orders. Just south of town, Wahl leased a massive warehouse that had sat empty since its previous tenant, a toolmaker, decamped to China a decade ago. The roof was patchy, but it would do in a pinch. The company is finally producing more than it ever has, but its inventory levels are hovering at 30% to 40% of where they should be. At this point, Yde says the local labor pool is maxed out; only about one-third of Wahl's new employees are working out. New machines and any kind of automation will take about a year to order and bring online. Wahl has some flexibility with its eight other factories around the world, but they are under the same pressures. The quarantine haircut is not an exclusively American phenomenon. "You can't do things quickly," Yde says. "The only thing we can do is throw people at it." For a business, a Covid spike is certainly preferable to a Covid slump, but perhaps not by much. When the pandemic eventually wanes, the onetime winners will have to shrink quickly. We'll hang up our baking aprons, stop stocking up on canned soup, and go back to seeing our long-lost friends and family on social media, rather than videoconferencing technology. For a swath of major companies, the Covid hangover will be painful. Wahl, as a privately held, family-owned company, isn't required to chase every available dollar; indeed, it has decided not to. The company is growing more slowly than the market demands, ceding share for the first time in decades, in exchange for a smoother book of business months down the line. By yearend, Wahl hopes to have increased production by 30%, though the retailers that it sells to would prefer 200%. "Honestly, it's just impossible," Yde says. "I could poop unicorns too, but it's not going to happen."  Featured in Bloomberg Businessweek, Aug. 10, 2020. Subscribe now. PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY 731; GETTY IMAGES (9); ALAMY (4) | 
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