Reuben bring you latest trend in Online Business; Insight and Ideas on how to Grow your Small and Medium Scale Business
You might have noticed a new end-of-year trend on Instagram the past few days. If so, you can thank 2017bestnine.com, a website that lets you automatically collect and collage your most-liked photos of 2017. Best Nine has been around for a while, so many of you may be familiar with the tool already. But for those of you who are new to that Best Nine game, here’s how it works. First of… Read More
Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) officially admitted it was slowing down iPhones as their batteries age. The reasoning for this move by the company makes perfect sense, but it was the execution which will cost Apple in terms of money and a black eye on its reputation and brand.
In its apology and explanation of how aging batteries affect iPhone performance, Apple was thorough and didn’t mince any words.
“We apologize” the company said. “We have never — and would never — do anything to intentionally shorten the life of any Apple product, or degrade the user experience to drive customer upgrades.”
For many small businesses still using the older iPhones, the optimization steps Apple has taken can be seen as a positive. Again, this depends entirely on how you feel about not being told it was taking place.
The steps Apple took were to dynamically manage the maximum performance of the batteries to prevent a shutdown of some system components when needed. It started with iOS 10.2.1 and it now includes iOS 11.2 for iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus, and iPhone SE as well as iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus.
The company said it is taking the following steps to, “Regain the trust of anyone who may have doubted Apple’s intentions.”
Firstt it is lowering the price of out-of-warranty iPhone battery replacement by $50, from $79 to $29. This goes for anyone with an iPhone 6 or later needing battery replacements. The offer will start in late January and end in December 2018 globally.
There will also be an update to the iOS software in early 2018 giving users increased visibility into the health of their battery life. This will allow them to see if the condition of the battery is affecting performance.
Details of the plan will be provided in the near future. You can follow the progress on apple.com.
First of all, it is almost impossible to hide anything in today’s digital ecosystem. Transparency is the way to go. If you let your customers know what you plan on doing regarding the products and services they purchase from you, it won’t come back to bite you in the future.
You have to be proactive in the way you communicate with your customers. You have social media, websites, email and SMS to make this possible. Had Apple been upfront about what it was doing, the company wouldn’t be where it is now. Omitting a simple explanation will prevent customers from questioning the hard-earned reputation of your brand. Don’t let it happen to you.
Image: Apple
This article, "What Apple’s Battery Mea Culpa Can Teach Your Small Business About Transparency" was first published on Small Business Trends
BlueCart recently introduced a report spotting purchasing trends in the hospitality industry. The 2017 Hospitality Report is designed to help restaurants, hotels and suppliers gain a competitive advantage by revealing the food and drink that’s most in demand.
It’s the first time BlueCart has issued such a report, but small businesses in this market will certainly want to take note.
“Our hope is that by providing this data to the public on a regular basis through these reports, it will allow businesses to stay up to date with what is popular in the marketplace and where they may want to focus their attention based on these potential emerging trends,” Konstantin Zvereff, BlueCart CEO, says in a press release.
The company says it compiled data from the report tracking sales among its users over the last three years. BlueCart is a wholesale procurement platform for businesses and buyers in hospitality.
“The goal of this report is to provide operators and distributors a top-down look at the market landscape, motivating operators and distributors to make better decisions and successfully grow their business,” writes Will Harmon, a marketing associate for BlueCart, on the company’s blog.
In it, BlueCart finds that seafood sales over the last three years increased more than four times over. Bakery sales are up 437 percent. Non-alcoholic beverages rose 249 percent but produce sales dropped by 41 percent.
Sales numbers could be skewed because this is the first time the report has been published and more data could have been presented later in the survey’s time window. It does identify trends, however.
Harmon adds, “Possible emerging trends include farmed salmon and shrimp demand rising, decreased sales in alternative cuts of chicken, and products that allow an “on-the-go” lifestyle surging in popularity.”
BlueCart provides a network of suppliers for the businesses using its service, which is available as a mobile app. As many as 37,000 businesses participated by submitting data for the report. To view the full BlueCart report, you can download it by following this link.
Image: BlueCart
This article, "The BlueCart Report Keeps Restaurants and Hotels on Top of Consumer Trends" was first published on Small Business Trends
One fraudulent online order can cost a small retailer nearly three times as much as the cost of the transaction. That’s what Stripe found in its December 2017 Online Fraud Trends and Behavior report (PDF).
The online payment processor recently released the report and gave Small Business Trends a unique perspective via exclusive email comments.
“One of our goals in publishing the report is to help small businesses better understand how and when fraudulent behavior shows up, so they can create specific strategies that directly address their needs,” says Michael Manapat, engineering manager for payments intelligence and experience at Stripe, in an email with Small Business Trends.
Stripe’s report found that a small online retail business will spend $2.62 battling back against online fraud for every $1 of a fraudulent order. That goes up to $3.34 for a mobile retail store. Therefore, it would make sense that it’s best to put up defense before falling victim to fraudulent transactions.
But how much defense is enough?
It’s true that cyber crimes are on the rise and it’s also true that small businesses are increasingly targeted by fraudsters. And as the security of transactions at brick-and-mortar stores increases, the likelihood that online transactions will be targeted more often goes up, too.
However, it’s also true that small businesses can over-invest in online fraud protection. This report from Stripe tries to help small online retailers identify where they need to protect themselves.
“Given their limited resources, most small businesses need to make trade-offs between policing fraud and maximizing profitability. Smaller companies can use the report to identify consistent patterns of fraudulent behavior,” Manapat says.
A small online retail store may have to ultimately decide whether to install some anti-fraud software on their store. But not every small business will have the money or resources to deploy such a defense. In other cases, Manapat says, online stores need to identify trends among fraudsters to spot suspicious activity while it’s happening.
For starters, smaller stores need to be capturing more information about their customers up front. This greatly reduces the chances of a fraudulent transaction.
“While every business is different, understanding how fraud shows up will not only help smaller retailers more effectively combat fraud, but also help them understand why setting better rules is so important,” Manapat adds.
Other key signs of transaction fraud online are purchases coming in at abnormally high rates. Fraud actors will sometimes purchase at 10 times the normal pace usually seen on a site. They also like to hit during evening hours, according to Stripe. And you can expect this activity during lower traffic times on a site.
“For example, fraud rates do not rise notably on heavy shopping days like Black Friday, but rather on days like Christmas when many people aren’t shopping,” the report explains.
Another key finding from the report shows that most fraudulent transactions aren’t for big-ticket items. Instead, it’s smaller transactions that tend to be fraudulent.
“In the United States, Stripe data shows that fraudulent transaction amounts are only slightly larger than regular transaction amounts,” the report states.
Stripe suggests that small online retailers work with a payment processor that deploys machine learning technology to help spot bogus transactions. But the company also notes that relying just on AI to spot fraud is not enough. Manual vigilance is also necessary.
“Machine learning models address this challenge by incorporating many context-specific nuances in order to reject only the most suspicious transactions, rather than putting in place blanket rules that can easily wind up blocking good transactions. Merchants should work with payment processors with machine learning and other technologies to optimize these complex trade-offs between stopping fraud and maximizing profitability,” the report adds.
Photo via Shutterstock
This article, "Small Online Stores Will Spend $2.62 for Every $1 of a Fraudulent Transaction" was first published on Small Business Trends
Each massive exit in the tech ecosystem usually follows the same cycle: an upstart becomes a huge business, it goes public or sells for a huge sum of money, many of the best people that built it take off and then they use their newfound wealth to start companies. But in addition to tech, the venture community has its own pet project: coffee. Read More
No matter what your specific business goals for 2018 are, your more general goal is probably to increase profitability.
A lot goes into making your business more profitable. And there are some trends for 2018 that can help you get there. If you’re looking to learn more about these trends and increase profits for your business in the new year, an upcoming webinar may be able to help.
The webinar, 5 Trends That Will Drive Your Profitability and Growth in 2018, is scheduled for January 24 so you can learn this valuable information just as the year is getting underway. Learn more about the event and how to sign up in the Featured Events section.
There are also plenty of other upcoming events that could help your business grow in 2018. Check out a full list of opportunities below.
To see a full list or to submit your own event, contest or award listing, visit the Small Business Events Calendar.
Make it Rain Money: How to Close Deals Faster and Speed Up Collections
January 17, 2018, Online
Would you like to bring revenue in the door faster? Do you want every edge possible to get paid fast? In this webinar, learn how other small businesses are eliminating their pain points in the contract and invoicing process, through use of electronic signature and invoicing apps. You’ll hear the results of exclusive DocuSign research about where other small businesses encounter the biggest challenges, and how to solve them. Today’s tools minimize manual steps and mistakes. Digital automation streamlines activities, tracks status and follows up for you — freeing up staff for other activities. Register today!
And most importantly, these tools get you paid faster, improving your cash flow.
At the end of this webinar, you’ll walk away with concrete tips for how to get contracts signed and invoices paid — much faster. Plus, you get access to DocuSign research and two concise whitepapers with insights and actionable ideas for how to improve YOUR company’s systems. So you get paid faster.
Sponsored by DocuSign.
WEBINAR: 5 Trends that Will Drive Your Profitability and Growth in 2018Customer habits and perceptions are rapidly evolving as new technologies such as artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things go mainstream. New opportunities are opening up – but at the same time businesses of all sizes are under intense pressure to meet changing customer expectations. In this webinar on Wednesday, January 24, 2018 at 2:00 pm ET, you will learn five key trends that will drive profitability and growth in 2018, if businesses quickly leverage them and adapt to them, including: The Automation Revolution, Rise of Amazon, Expectations, The Instant Customer Service Trend, The DIY Dichotomy, Always-On Operations. Get ahead of the curve and lead in your marketplace, by understanding how to use these trends for growth and profit. Register today!
LEAP HR: Retail Conference, Nashville 2018LEAP HR: Retail 2018 will once again dig deeper into the innovative people leaps helping digital-native and established retailers succeed in a rapidly transforming industry. With new speakers, fresh case studies, and a pre-conference ‘Boot Camp’ day dedicated to what the next-generation retail workforce really looks like, LEAP HR Retail 2018 remains the unique opportunity for senior people leaders in this industry to really challenge and get creative around how we do HR in retail.
This weekly listing of small business events, contests and awards is provided as a community service by Small Business Trends and SmallBizTechnology.
Image: Shutterstock
This article, "This Webinar Can Help You Make Your Business More Profitable in 2018" was first published on Small Business Trends
Every marketer has his or her own favorite methods and tools. But branching out can sometimes be beneficial. That’s why it’s a good idea to learn what strategies are working well for other entrepreneurs. Here are some insights from members of the online small business community to help you create a marketing plan for your own business in 2018.
When you write a blog post, that doesn’t have to be the only time you use that particular content. In fact, there are plenty of different ways you can repurpose that content into shorter snippets that you share on your social media pages, as Brian Appleton explains in this Social Media Examiner post.
If you want to up your content marketing game in 2018, you need the best resources at your disposal. This Content Marketing Institute post by Jodi Harris includes an entire toolkit of content marketing tips, templates and checklists you can use in 2018.
Content marketing is a proven method for getting the word out about your business. And there are plenty of tools out there to make the writing process easier, like the ones in this Buzz and Tips post by Steve Williams. You can also see what the BizSugar community is saying about the post.
If you want your marketing efforts to really resonate in the new year, then you need to learn some lessons from what you did in 2017. In a recent post on Juvlon, Apeksha Kshirsagar offers some marketing lessons for small businesses that you can take into 2018.
Salesforce has long been one of the most powerful tools for managing sales. And there are also plenty of apps you can use with the platform to improve your processes even more. Here, Benjamin Brandall of Process Street lists some of the top apps you can use to power up your sales.
You might think that you can run a successful Facebook page on your own. But there are actually significant advantages to having more than one admin. Lisa Sicard of Inspire to Thrive shares why in a recent post. And BizSugar members discuss the post further too.
If you run a business completely on your own, then the marketing strategies that work for larger businesses aren’t likely to apply. Instead, take a look at some of the marketing strategies specifically for solopreneurs in a recent DIY Marketers post by Rhonda Burgess.
Even freelancers could use some help marketing their services from time to time. There are many different ways a marketing expert can help freelance businesses. Ivan Widjaya of Biz Epic elaborates in a recent post.
The landing page of your website should serve a specific purpose — converting visitors into customers. And video can play a major role in that, according to a recent Pagewiz post by Elna Cain. BizSugar members also share some thoughts on the post.
If one of your goals for the new year is to update your branding, then a new logo might be in order. If that’s the case, you need to look at some of the current design trends that might impact your process. Here are some things to consider from Katie Lundin of Crowdspring.
If you’d like to suggest your favorite small business content to be considered for an upcoming community roundup, please send your news tips to: sbtips@gmail.com.
Image: Shuttestock
This article, "10 Ways to Branch Out with Your Marketing Strategy in the New Year" was first published on Small Business Trends
The year 2017 is almost over. Are you still carrying unsold merchandise in your store?
As the post-holiday frenzy dies down, January is a slow month for most retail stores. On top of the holiday bill hangover consumers are experiencing, bad weather or resolutions to stop spending money will often keep shoppers away.
But if those unsold products are gathering dust on your shelves or taking up space in your stockroom, they’re not bringing in profits for your business. It’s time for a clearance sale!
The word “clearance” is overused these days when many retail chains seem to offer weekly clearance deals. However, when clearance is done sparingly, it can be a highly effective marketing strategy. Clearance can attract not only your regular customers, but bargain-hunters who might not otherwise stop into your store. For instance, many people who don’t normally shop at Nordstrom Rack hit the discount store regularly for its seasonal clearance sales.
Here’s how to make your clearance sale a success.
1. Time it right. Quarterly seasonal clearance makes sense for most retail businesses. You want to sell products at the tail end of the season, while they’re more attractive to customers. (For example, it’s easier to move parkas in January than April.) If your products aren’t particularly seasonal, a clearance every six months may work. Just don’t let too much unsold stock build up.
2. Choose your wares. Using your point-of-sale/inventory management system, identify the products that are least profitable and slowest moving so you can pull them for clearance.
3. Create your clearance display. Don’t hide your clearance in the back of the store. You can often tempt shoppers to come into your store by putting clearance items relatively close to the door. Limit the total space you devote to clearance. It’s OK if the products are a little crowded. You don’t want so much clearance that your retailer looks like a thrift store or as if you’re going out of business. Try putting some small clearance items near the checkout line. You’d be surprised how many people can’t resist this.
4. Price it right. Using actual prices rather than percentage-off signs typically attracts more bargain hunters. No math is required to see that “$10 each” is a good deal. Try sectioning products by price — a $10 display, a $20 display, a $5 and under display, etc.
5. Kick it off with a bang. Ever been to a “clearance” sale that offers 15 percent off? (Eye roll.) That’s not nearly enough to tempt true bargain hunters. Start with 50 percent off — possibly even deeper discounts depending on your industry, your competition and what types of discounts you’ve offered throughout the year.
6. Market online and off. Market your clearance through email, online advertising, social media, on your website and/or direct mail. Greet customers at your entrance and let them know about your clearance specials. Point out the sale racks or shelves and maybe even suggest an item. Giving shoppers a bag or basket to shop with can entice them to buy more, too.
7. Sweeten the deal. If your product doesn’t sell on 50 percent clearance, don’t hang on to it. Your primary goal is to move the items out of inventory, so increase the discount every day of the clearance — 50 percent the first day, 60 percent the second day, etc. — to motivate buyers.
8. Let it go. What if at the end of your clearance, you’ve still got stuff left? Don’t try to sell it next season. One shoe store I shop at has an annual clearance sale where at least half the inventory is shoes that didn’t sell at the last sale! Know when to cut your losses.
9. Act quickly. If a product doesn’t sell, have a plan for disposing of it at the end of the sale. You can try liquidators, remarketers or donating the items to charity for a tax write-off.
10. Connect with new customers. Make a special effort to get new customers on your mailing list. Ask them to sign up for your email newsletters or loyalty reward program. For those who are bargain oriented, asking, “Would you like to know about our next clearance sale in advance so you can get a better selection?” is generally all it takes to get them to sign up.
Happy selling!
Photo via Shutterstock
This article, "10 Creative Ways You Can Improve Your Next Clearance Sale" was first published on Small Business Trends
The largest year-over-year holiday sales increase since 2011 was just recorded by the Mastercard SpendingPulse report. The 4.9 percent increase comes at a time when terms such as “Retail Apocalypse” are in the headlines forecasting the demise of retailers.
According to Mastercard, customer confidence is one of the biggest drivers. This also accounted for an 18.1 percent increase in online shopping compared to 2016. The recent overhaul and passing of the tax bill may have also played a role in the late season rally.
The number of customers shopping in retail stores has been declining, but a large percentage of customers still prefer brick and mortar outlets.
Sarah Quinlan, senior vice president of Market Insights for Mastercard, addressed the increase in sales on the company’s press release. She said, “Evolving consumer preferences continue to play out in the aisles and online sites of retailers across the U.S. Overall, this year was a big win for retail. The strong U.S. economy was a contributing factor, but we also have to recognize that retailers who tried new strategies to engage holiday shoppers were the beneficiaries of this sales increase.”
The Mastercard SpendingPulse report looks at all retail sales except the automotive segment in the U.S. across all payment types. The holiday shopping period, according to Mastercard, is from November 1 through December 24.
While the number was good overall, some segments fared better than others when the data was analyzed. At 7.5 percent, electronics and appliances had the strongest growth of the past 10 years. As for the home furniture, furnishings, and home improvement category, the growth was 5.1 percent.
The report also said the success retailers experienced could be attributed to heavy early-season promotions as well as last-minute shopping. The early promotions resulted in significant increases in sales for the first three weeks of November.
Last-minute shopping, especially in jewelry which rose by 5.9 percent, resulted in record spending sprees.
The demise of the retail store has been in the headlines, but it doesn’t look like 2018 is the year it is going to happen. Granted retailers have been closing in record numbers, but consumers have shown they still enjoy the experience of going out to shop.
For small businesses operating in this highly competitive environment, it’s necessary to make the in-store experience even more special. This includes delivering better customer service and seamless integration with digital solutions.
Photo via Shutterstock
This article, "Mastercard Says Retail Sales Grew 4.9% During Record Holiday Season" was first published on Small Business Trends
While cryptocurrencies stole the spotlight in 2017, a clutch of companies were quietly working behind the scenes to slowly bring the financial services establishment to its knees. It may turn out that these startup entrants of the last several years will prove to be the more relevant disruptors. Read More
The founders of PayPal and its employees have produced many highly successful companies over the years. Often referred to as the “PayPal Mafia” because they’ve had such an impact on the startup ecosystem, this serial entrepreneur success story is reminiscent of a similar phenomenon taking place in Latin America. The story starts with another U.S. company, Groupon. Read More
Holy hell, it’s been a year for Amazon. Jeff Bezos’ former-online-bookstore dumped $13.7 billion to buy a bunch of grocery stores, that speaker you talk to in your living room that Amazon makes is really popular and a bunch of server farms Amazon runs generate more than $10 billion in revenue annually. Read More
Apple and Google are two of the biggest names in tech. And as such, they provide a lot of tools and platforms that are useful to businesses. However, some of those tools haven’t always been accessible to all small businesses. Apple’s App Store has recently added some rules that excluded many small businesses. And the Google Assistant hasn’t been available to those who couldn’t afford brand new devices.
However, both companies are trying to right those wrongs with new announcements this week. You can read more about those items and other news that could impact your business in this week’s Small Business Trends news and information roundup.
When Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) changed its App Store Guidelines earlier this year, the move had some unintended consequences, which negatively impacted many small businesses. Fortunately, Apple just announced a new set of guidelines revising the changes with clear wording that seems to reverse some of those negatives.
Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL) is breathing a little new life into older Android mobile devices. The company announced recently its helpful AI tool, Google Assistant, is coming to even more phones and (finally) tablets.
If you have been using the capturing, tracking and reporting capabilities of Xero Projects on your desktop, you can now perform the same functions on your mobile device. Xero (NZE: XRO) now has Xero Projects on iOS and Android. With the new apps, you will be able to proactively track time on jobs in and outside of the office.
Key to raising productivity and improving operational efficiency in today’s digital ecosystem is adopting the right technology. The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) has just released an infographic with three tech trends small businesses should look out for in 2018.
For creative pros such as video editors, photographers, developers and others who spend countless hours in front of a computer screen, the new line of LG (KRX: 066570) monitors are something to consider. In addition to their impressive size, the 32 and 34-inch monitors will have state-of-the-art features for delivering high-quality images.
LG (KRX: 066570) has announced a new line of its light and thin Gram laptops. A Peek at the LG 2018 Gram Laptops LG claims that these state-of-the-art laptops (available in 13.3-, 14-, and 15-inch models) feature highly-efficient 72Wh battery life that allows you to work, on a single charge, for almost a full day.
The end of the calendar year is upon us once again. It’s time to assess how your small business is doing and in this week’s poll question, we want to check the pulse of our community. This surely has been an interesting year for small businesses in the U.S. A new President was inaugurated who promises big changes for the business environment in the country.
A new study from Finhabits finds that less than 10 percent of employees in small businesses located in the top five Hispanic metro areas of the U.S. have access to employer-sponsored retirement savings accounts. The ‘2017 Latino Small Business Workers Lack Retirement Savings study found there is a significant ethnic gap in retirement savings.
The Wonderlic Score is well known as the tool many NFL teams turn to when they’re making their yearly college draft decisions. Small Businesses Trends spoke with Wonderlic CEO, Charles Wonderlic about how their SaaS pre-employment testing program, Wonscore, works and why Wonderlic scores are useful when looking for eligible candidates.
Marketing a small business has gotten much more complicated with the introduction of the internet, social media, websites, ecommerce and other digital tools. The new infographic by MDG Advertising has five marketing trends you should be watching out for in 2018.
Commercial kitchens can accumulate a lot of grease and contaminants. And while removing that buildup is important, it’s not always something that business owners or managers want to handle on their own. That’s where Bare Metal Standard comes in. The company works with commercial kitchens around the country through a franchise program.
As this year draws to a close, many small businesses are already looking ahead to emerging trends for 2018. 2018 Workplace Trends Jonathan Webb, VP of workplace strategy at global furniture manufacturer KI, spoke with Small Business Trends about what smaller enterprises can expect.
Small business teams that struggle with keeping up with all the internal email communication involved in running daily operations may be happy to learn about a new tool that aims to curtail those emails. Topicbox Group Email Discussion Tool Topicbox is meant for teams that utilize a lot of group email chains but who want a better way to organize those chains.
There is a perception out there businesses slack during the last week of December, but how true is it? Egnyte wanted to find out, so it analyzed more than 3 billion activities from last year’s holiday week. The infographic the company created reveals the number is minimal, only five percent to be exact.
Chargeback’s new SaaS product will get rid of the manual process of managing credit card disputes internally. For small businesses dealing with chargebacks from credit card companies, it means automating a labor-intensive process and saving valuable time.
A staggering half of businesses aren’t using WhatsApp! Furthermore, 72 percent of business users on WhatsApp don’t use the messaging app for group chats with business colleagues, using it predominantly for one-to-one communication. These were the findings of a study carried out by online marketing specialists Digimax.
Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) is opening its ARStudio platform to developers. This comes on the heels of Snapchat announcing its Lens Studio so creators and developers can easily create more content for AR. Facebook AR Studio Open Beta Camera Effects Platform (CEP) was released at F8, but it has been in closed beta this whole time.
Jim Sherman doesn’t spend his Christmas at home like many Americans. Instead, the owner of Firehouse Subs in Mobile, Alabama, delivers hundreds of meals to first responders who have to spend their holidays protecting their communities. Feeding Firemen on Christmas The “Feeding First Responders” initiative started 11 years ago.
Christmas is a time for traditions and family for so many people. Maybe none more than Matthew Bliss. In 2011, he showed his Modern Christmas Tree for the first time at a mid-century modern style trade show. And earlier this year, he appeared on the TV show “Shark Tank” looking for an investor to help expand his product line and brand.
Image: Shutterstock
This article, "Apple Updates App Store Rules, Google Assistant Comes to Older Phones" was first published on Small Business Trends
TrendKite is closing out 2017 with the announcement that it’s raised an additional $11 million in funding. The Austin-based startup says it’s currently analyzing 4.2 million articles every day, and using that analysis to help both brands and agencies to measure the impact of their PR efforts. So it can identify the total audience reached by articles mentioning the company, or… Read More
The end of the calendar year is upon us once again. It’s time to assess how your small business is doing and in this week’s poll question, we want to check the pulse of our community.
This surely has been an interesting year for small businesses in the U.S. A new President was inaugurated who promises big changes for the business environment in the country. And certainly, a lot of small businesses are anticipating a cut in their taxes. And many are already seeing regulations slashed at the federal level, but perhaps not at the state and local level.
Consumer confidence is up, too. And that has retail businesses chomping at the bit to see a revival in sales. A record holiday shopping season surely helped a lot of small businesses in the last few weeks.
So, again, this week, we want to know how 2017 treated your small business. Was it better than last year or worse? Did sales go up or down? Have you added staff or were you forced to cut help to trim your spending?
Answer the poll question below and let us know.
Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.Photo via Shutterstock
This article, "(POLL) Did Your Small Business Have a Good 2017?" was first published on Small Business Trends
