As the nation goes into lockdown, some Notts firms have seen a dramatic upturn in demand for their products and services.

Home and commercial fitness equipment company Fitness Options, based in Kirkby-in-Ashfield, has seen enquiries for home gym equipment go through the roof since the outbreak of Covid-19 in the UK.

Wendy Howe, co-owner of the firm, said: “We have actually seen our sales rocket as people seek fitness options outside of their usual gym class in the safety of their own home.

“One of our key USPs is the calibre of the equipment we sell.

“For now, all we can do is continue to focus on the things we can control, such as service quality and staff training."

Smaller retailers have also had to up their game to keep up with demand.

Oliver’s Toy Chest Ltd in Basford is an independent online toy retailer run by family team, Oliver Smith and his mother Helen Smith.

Oliver Smith and mum Helen Smith run Oliver’s Toy Chest in Basford

They saw an increase in sales at the weekend of more than 1,000 per cent.

Working extra hours to cope with the demand, Mr Smith, 28, said: “The increase has been great for business but has been a challenge as it was unexpected.

“We’ve had to plan like it’s Christmas but in two days rather than four months.

“By far the best sellers are painting by numbers and jigsaw puzzles - even the Christmas puzzles have sold out… products that are creative and can take a lot of time to complete.

“In these tough times we are continuing to offer a great service to our customers nationwide and as far afield as Italy!”

While businesses are rising to the challenge, patience is still required.

Milk and More, a doorstep milk delivery service which operates in Notts was so inundated with visitors to its website today that it was operating a queuing system to even get on to its site - and it was a pretty long wait.

At 10.22am this morning there were 12,087 users ahead of us in the queue.

The firm says that due to the volume of new customers, and to ensure it can continue to make deliveries to existing customers, they are not accepting any new registrations at the moment.

Adding they are working hard to ensure they can turn this option back on as soon as possible.