59 PERCENT OF SMALL RETAILERS ARE AT RISK OF CLOSING

As shocking as the headline is, I have taken it from a Chain Store Age article that ran July 25 by Marianne Wilson, editor-in-chief reporting on Alignable’s Small Business Revenue Report based on a poll of 4,392 small business owners conducted from June 10, 2022, to July 13, 2022.

The article reports that “Nearly half (47 percent) of small business owners said their businesses are in jeopardy of closing by the fall.” The figure is up 12 percent from the summer of 2021 when a similar poll reported 35 percent of businesses said they were in jeopardy.

According to Chain Store Age, the “… risk of shutting down is particularly intense in retail, where 59 percent of small businesses said they are in danger of shutting down.”

By region, according to Chain Store Age, the Alignable report shows small business owners in Colorado, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas are at the top of the list in jeopardy of closing this year.

The problem is inventory. 50 percent of small business owners responded that they were cutting back on their orders for the fourth quarter of this year, which is in line with the latest findings from the Wall Street Journal Logistics Report that “business-inventory woes are dragging down the U.S. economy.”   

As we reported last month, brands and retailers were too slow in reacting and adjusting to consumers pivoting away from goods to services, leaving brands and retailers with growing inventory and an over-stuffed supply chain as the result of the bullwhip effect.

Comments? Contact Jay Townley, jay@humanpoweredsolutions.com