South Coast Crystals: another small business struggling due to economy

Having established their family run business over the past five-and-a-half years, they haven't taken the decision lightly, with Ms Dalberg describing it as "heartbreaking".

"In hindsight it would have been good to have a crystal ball," she said with a hint of irony.

Although sad to be closing up in Eden, Ms Dalberg said the business was relocating and re-prioritising in a smaller premises in Merimbula.

"We got this place when COVID started and our business went bananas, so we expanded. Then towards the second half of last year, it just started to slow off a lot.

"I think the economy is just playing a huge role in small business closures," Ms Dalberg said.

"It's not something we want to do, but it is something that we have to do.

"And it is kind of our last ditch effort to try and keep a bricks and mortar store going."

Filled with tiered acrylic shelves containing more than 100 different stones and crystals including agates, blue tigereye, leopard skin jasper, rhodonite, greenstone, bloodstone, and amethyst, larger mixed rough stones, as well as homewares, plants, and pots, the store has something for everyone.

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"You get kids that come in and they're young and just on their journey, you get people in their 20s that are really getting into self-healing and stuff like that, and then you get the older people that are really into the geological side of it, so they like to know about the form and where it's from.

"So really it's from kids all the way up to grandparents."

A lady in a green jumper entered the store, her eyes drawn as though magnetic in nature towards a rustic bench.

"How much is that?" she asked, before moments later leaving the store with the bench, a few plants and pots in hand.

Moments earlier, another lady left having exuberantly hefted a large Himalayan salt lamp before making the way to her car, a smile upon her face.

"I think it's a hugely different variety of people [who come to the store]," Ms Dalberg said.

South Coast Crystals will be in Eden at Shop 1/136 Imlay St, for the next two weeks as of May 11, before moving to a smaller space in Merimbula. They currently have 50 per cent off homewares, plants and pots.