In a trend that court hurt email service vendors, small businesses, are seeing sluggish recovery and continue to be worried about the Delta variant’s impact, according to a new study by Alignable.
Of those polled, 80% of owners are worried about their ability to recover, up from 76% in the prior month. Fewer than 20% are unconcerned about Delta.
In addition, 11% now say they’re starting to feel the impact, versus 4% in June. Moreover, 34% are feeling a significant impact, compared to 22% in June.
And 62% say they are fully open -- down from 68% in June. In addition, 43% are seeing half or less of the monthly revenue they earned prior to COVID-19 pandemic.
COVID-19 is their first worry, but inflation, including rising inventory and supply costs, is a close second. Overall, 85% are facing higher inventory costs.
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Supply and inventory costs have risen by more than 25% for 29% of SMBs, and by 11% to 25% by 33%. Another 23% report increases of 1 to 10%, and 13% say their costs are the same.
However, 49% are maintaining their pre-COVID-19 price levels, and 22% have increased them by 1% to 10%. Only 7% have raised prices by more than 25% and 7$ by over 25%. Yet 5% have lowered them by 1% to 10%.
At the same time, 62% are having trouble rehiring or finding employees, a 12% increase over July. And 40% say hiring is significantly more difficult, while 23% feel it’s just a little more difficult and 36% that it’s the same.
The study includes live quotes such as these:
The study reflects data from 2,864 business owners from 8/29/21 to 9/14/21.