Will Inflation Affect Your Recovery? Take Our Poll
POLL | COVID RECOVERY | We've seen some early signs of recovery in certain sectors of the small business economy, but we've also heard from several of you that you're facing increasing costs & fears of inflation. Are your supply costs climbing? And how are those increases affecting your business?
So, please take a few minutes to share the latest on your recovery & any concerns about inflation. And thanks in advance for your input, which we'll share with policymakers & the media next week. Take our survey here:
As always, we appreciate your input. Please take a moment to see our April Road to Recovery Report, and/or our April Rent Report, if you haven't seen them yet.
What You Told Us Last Month
The chart below was included in April's Road to Recovery Report, showing that concerns over the rising costs of supplies have, indeed, elevated as of late.
Two months ago, 9% of those polled cited this as their primary worry.
Last month, that number jumped to 12%.
And, as of our last poll (3/27/21-4/1/21), this concern has elevated again, reaching a new peak: 17%.
It will be interesting to track what this late-April survey reveals.
Media outlets including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Business Insider, Yahoo News, Axios, NBC, NPR, CNN, The Daily Shot, Motley Fool, and hundreds of others have used data from the reports (provided by you and other members) to tell the world what's really happening among small businesses. Thanks again for all of your help.
And please feel free to post additional thoughts in our comments section below -- also noting if you would be open to a potential media interview at some point. Often journalists ask our Head of PR to speak directly to members for their stories, if you are so inclined.
Comments (21-30)
We are very busy and I am afraid for the Real Estate market when the foreclosures start, as so many of our citizens are behind and the banks are waiting for the Feds to open the gates. I hope that it doesn't happen but I think that it wishful thinking.
With mandatory shutdowns, people are doing less, spending less which has made the cost of labor rise and the competition for a smaller piece of the consumers business drive prices down. LOCKDOWNS ARE SLOWLY KILLING THE ECONOMY! As an essential business, which we are somewhat fortunate for, although it just seems like a slower death, another lockdown during the summer will end my business, put 3 more on the unemployment statistics and force my family out of the province, possibly the country we used to call home.
At Spoton we have grown considerably over the last year and have increased our employee account by over 25%. We have not raised our pricing and have instead added more platforms to help our merchants grow their revenue and reduce their costs. We have also added to our service team to help our merchants get quick answers and help usually in under 2 minutes by our experienced tech teams and myself being local.
Our waiting time use to be 5-10 days is now a minimum of 30. We have needed semiconductors that will not be available until the end of the year. Resins are hard to come by - this effects everything in processed wood such as building supplies (house, cabinets, finishes, lamination etc) slatwall, plastics such as those used in vehicles and semiconductors. These shortages have been created by reduced manufacturing during COVID shut-downs and cost of energy rising. Our freight charges have increased and will continue to increase as energy costs rise.
As others have mentioned; Political situations have a definite effect on inflation, shortages and a sense of uneasiness of those in small business. We (small businesses) continue to meet these challenges, however, it does take it's toll - financially and on our morale.
We use independent contractors to fill all of our private duty cases. Most of the companies in this industry (home health) are having problems getting care givers to take a 3 day a week 4 hour case. Some families don’t need more then that. We end up having to charge more to get the caregiver to take a case.
I truly believe a big problem is they are getting unemployment and on their weekly forms when asked if they were offered work they say no. There is no proof to the contrary. They always have the choice to turn down a case. It has just gotten 100% harder to fill cases like pre COVID. We always get it done, but it is much harder then it used to be. The stimulus money also kept a lot of workers at home. The intention was good, but if they get $2800 or more, and don’t have to go to work, they aren’t going to.
Just keep paying people more money to say at home and you will have no work force.
The Idea to pay those on unemployment 300 dollar more a week was stupid.
Now are goverment thinks printing trillions of more dollars will bail us out.How nuts is that idea,hyper inflation is now happening and senior citizen are in the cross hairs.
We need to redirect manufacturing back to our own country. Encourage our Governments to invest in Canadian manufacturing instead of the situation we are rapidly facing: being handcuffed by Foreign exports owning the barges that are moving our supplies! Hence we become solely dependent on imports/for survival of all of our industries. We are facing extreme supply shortages due to our import dependence of everything! Help reroute our goods back to Canadian, North American soil. So we have more control over our supplies that we obviously NEED! We also need to focus on getting rid of COVID so we have the chain supply and demand.
We have not only adapted BUT most of our clients enjoy the ease of virtual telephonic or ZOOM consultations when appropriate.
Business has been steady since it is tied more to financial interest rates Moe than anything else. There are adjustments that have to be made, but overall business has been good in the design and construction industry.
Covid had little effect on our business
We worked around it
Supplies have gone up in price and down in availability
We work around all the barriers by innovating changing vendors doing a lot ourselves