Small Retail Business May See Declining Sales

With roughly half of all Americans working at firms with less than 100 employees, the performance of small business in America is critically important to the U.S. economy. According to recent information from Sageworks, Inc. a North Carolina company that specializes in tracking private company performance, small retail businesses are not doing well this year. In fact, their data shows that the smaller the business, the smaller their revenue gains have been this year.

When looking at private retail businesses with annual sales over $10 million, Sageworks shows an 11.2 percent growth in year to date sales. However, smaller retail businesses with less than $1 million in annual sales are actually experiencing a 2.6 percent decline in sales during the same period.

Translation? Local mom and pop shops are not doing as well as larger stores and chains. Consequently, these smaller operations haven't hired as much this holiday season, focusing instead on minimizing operating costs and trying to bring themselves into the black for the year.

One issue is that foot traffic is down for all retail operations. The American consumer is choosing to do their shopping online with their PC’s, smartphones and tablets. While this hasn’t damaged larger retail stores, the smaller operations simply don’t have the capital to invest in online marketing and websites with downloadable apps.

However, a vehicle like the Sunovis Short-Term Micro Loan could help small businesses set up and enable online operations.

With small businesses creating nearly half of all private sector jobs, the October ADP jobs report said 50,000 of 158,000 non-farm jobs were created by firms with less than 50 employees, economic growth is dependent on these small businesses.

One solution is for small businesses to work on increasing their online and offline visibility. “Any way they can increase visibility is going to help them,” said Bierman. “There are a lot of options available to them, like Google Adwords, where they can introduce a profile to drive traffic locally to these companies.”

The AMEX Small Business Saturday is one good example of how social media can help small business in America. According to the National Federation of Independent Business, Small Business Saturday shopping in 2012 was $5.5 billion, in part due to the added consumer awareness from the national campaign promoting local businesses.

The Sunovis Short-Term Business Loan for small businesses could provide the capital needed to add an online presence and boost profits.

About Sunovis Financial 
Every small business is important to local communities and even more important in rebuilding the American economy. Today more than ever, small businesses need capital and assistance to thrive, and that is what Sunovisis focused on. Sunovis specializes in SBA loans and Short-Term Micro Loans for small businesses.

Edited by Kristin Craik