Struggle…
Dying…
Dying…
Gone
If you have been one of the honest people and businesses out there who have filed for your ERC tax credits, then you are also one of thousands if not millions who have seen the coming collapse of your small business as you stream down the pages of the Excel worksheets that show the declining revenue of your business.
These numbers mirror your struggles to shift from customers who used to come into your store, from customers who only use the drive through, call-in for a pickup, or purchase online. Let's face it, the covid shutdown changed the way we shop and businesses see it within their financial reports.
The lockdown/shutdown worked for the big boys who were well staffed with technicians to make this shift happen. They had the purchasing power to curtail the worst of the supply chain disruptions and they were allowed to stay open, too. They even managed to gobble up your former employees and you're still wondering, "Where did all the working class go?"
But as a small business owner you did not have a staff of technicians, not much purchasing leverage, and finally you had no employees no matter what you offered for a wage; owners and their family members went to work in the family business in hopes they could save it.
Younger business owners will need to buckle down and divert all of their energy into the day-to-day operations and hopefully they will save their business. But, if the owner had additional challenges during the covid years like their health, the health of their family, deaths of friends and family, their ability to give it their all has been stifled by the too few workers available for their business to fully reopen.
You ask how will they survive? The tally is still out on how many businesses will survive Covid. Every business closure you see this year is still the result of the "Covid Shut Down Years." Those who have survived and turned things around will need to tighten their belts further, close their operations, or possibly move the business to another state, due to further demands from local and state governments on the wages and taxes they must pay to operate here, in addition to the unavoidable inflation to the cost of their business operations. Their ability to raise prices has dwindled and they continue to lose their customer base to the likes of Amazon, Walmart, and large operators who can survive on shrinking profit margins.
So be ready to say good-bye to your favorite small businesses because mom and pop are paying the price of a forced, pro-longed government shutdown to keep us safe from Covid.