Axxis founder Mathew Dickerson also reported of a customer rush at a city supermarket, in the last hours before stay-at-home orders came into force at 1pm on Wednesday.

The restrictions mean many of the city's retail premises are required to close to the public, however businesses providing essential products and services can be open.

Mr Dickerson, whose shopfront is located in Dubbo Square, on Wednesday said there tended to be a "two-speed economy" whenever the pandemic impacted a community.

He said some businesses became busier if they were providing products or services that might be required in a COVID-19 lockdown.

"In the local environment, certainly in Dubbo Square there's a dramatic increase in foot traffic today," he said.

"We're seeing Coles very busy."

But in the past 18 months other businesses, among them restaurants, cafes and motels, "became quiet" in a lockdown and for them Wednesday's announcement was "devastating", Mr Dickerson said.

"Business owners typically have got their heart on their sleeve in terms of a business that's often something they've got a passion about," he said.

"They've put their heart and soul into that business typically, and I'm talking about small business here, small, medium business.

"So there's a lot of passion involved in that, and then you work really hard, you plan your business, you make sure you've got strategies in place, you've got your advertising processes in place.

"You've got all these things you think you can plan for, and then something like COVID comes along...

"It's not something you would typically plan for, you've got to be able to be agile in a business to try to accommodate something like a pandemic coming along, because it's not something that happens on a regular basis."

The entrepreneur of three decades and former Dubbo mayor said something like the COVID outbreak was "completely outside your control".

"People, when they see this kind of an announcement [of the lockdown] from a business perspective, it's devastating, it's disheartening, it really takes away that morale from the business owner, the staff as well," he said.

"Staff want to be at work, they want to be contributing, they want to make a useful contribution to society.

"So even though it might sound great, go home and watch a bit of Netflix, I think most staff members would prefer to be in there making their contribution, or they'd probably get sick of sitting around watching Netflix pretty quickly."

Mr Dickerson said his telecommunications and digital technology store had experienced demand during the past 18 months' challenges.

"From our personal experience, our business, it actually gets busier during any sort of lockdown or anywhere where people are having to work from home because they need that telecommunications, they need to be able to keep working or keep contributing to society from home, rather than an office scenario," he said.

"So we actually find it generally makes us a little bit busier as well - probably not to the same extent as a supermarket."