Small retail brick-and-mortar businesses are being hit very hard by:
A. credit card fees
B. state incentives to online businesses like Amazon to open warehouses
C. the idea that all jobs should pay enough to support a family
A. As a bookstore owner I’m being crushed because the price is printed on the book and I cannot raise prices to cover the increases I’m seeing in all my operating costs. Consumers hate it when businesses pass the credit card fee onto them but unless Congress acts to rein in their fees, this is our only hope of survival. Additionally, the fees and time suck related to PCI compliance for my small 4-person company is pretty outrageous. Why do the credit card companies get to charge me fees to ensure I’m being careful with credit card numbers but then they don’t eat any fraudulent charges and I have to pay for any chargebacks as well? They are hitting me on all sides and there’s not much I can do about it unless I just stop accepting cards at all, which is not a very legitimate option considering that almost 90% of my sales are via credit/debit cards.
B. My state gave Amazon a ton of incentives to open a warehouse, including not having to collect and remit state sales tax for years. Those warehouse jobs were likely not a net gain since that favoritism put a lot of small retail out of business, not just bookstores. Since we cannot stop states from competing against each other to gain large busineses like Amazon warehouses, I’d love to see some federal support for small retail businesses in some way that doesn’t require a lot of jumping through hoops. Small business also needs to be redefined or another category like micro business used instead. The SBA currently says " most non-manufacturing businesses with average annual receipts under $7.5 million, qualify as small businesses." That’s fairly ridiculous. We need a category for those under $1 million.
C. Many teenager’s first job was as a part-time retail worker. Those jobs are meant to introduce kids to the work force or give the stay-at-home parent some work/socialization while their kids are in school and are not meant to support a family on. If every single job has to support a family then many small retail businesses are going to go under since we don’t have the capital to automate everything the way McDonald’s is doing.