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Small Businesses Are Dying by the Thousands – and No One Is Tracking the Carnage

bloomberg.com

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Re: Small Businesses Are Dying by the Thousands – and No One Is Tracking the Carnage

#21

Post by nutshell89 »

bluntfang wrote: post #16
spanhandler wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The world's 50,000th best yoga instructor can probably make a living running a yoga studio. I'm not sure the world's 50,000th best yoga instructor can make a living selling online yoga classes.

i'm not even sure being good at instructing yoga has anything to do with selling online yoga classes. online engagement is hard, it almost seems antithesis what it would take to sell yoga classes online to the practice of yoga.

I've done biweekly yoga before the quarantine and have continued to do so online. I agree that it's hard to remain engaged in a group class when most of the participants keep their webcams and microphones turned off and the instructor can't comment on your breathing and / or form because at best they have a 2D video stream to work with.

Re: Small Businesses Are Dying by the Thousands – and No One Is Tracking the Carnage

#22

Post by catsarebetter »

In the Bay Area, a lot of stores are closing down, not 50% but probably around 30%-50% range depending on which part. Places with less traffic are getting hit harder (obv).

The thing that you have to understand is that the smbs were competing with other local smbs. So your favorite local coffeeshop only had 4 other competitors (not in SF lol). Ppl who used to type in "yoga classes near me" will be typing in "yoga classes online". Now they're competing against everyone on the internet. Against everyone who has a 5 year lead on them with SEO and marketing. There's just no way an SMB can take them, nor is there enough incentive for digital agencies to help b/c it's such a long shot that they can produce result for the smbs.

Unless there's some search engine that ranks based on locale rather than standard SEO, but that's just not happening.

Re: Small Businesses Are Dying by the Thousands – and No One Is Tracking the Carnage

#23

Post by zarkov99 »

lockdownornot wrote: post #5

Guess who bought up real estate post-2009 crisis, when prices were at rock bottom? Wealthy individuals and corporations that had enough assets to withstand the storm and capitalize on a down market. Guess who will grab more market share post-COVID? Better yet, guess who wasn't affected by forced lockdowns and benefited during the worst of COVID? I find it very distressing that this massive transfer of wealth from sma…

I share the distress. Covid has accelerated the inequality that was already at record levels. For many in tech and other white colar work Covid is either a non-event or a net benefit, while for many others its life ruining. We better start preparing for a future where many, maybe most, people have no economic value.

Re: Small Businesses Are Dying by the Thousands – and No One Is Tracking the Carnage

#25

Post by jansan »

Who the hell killed the comment on the booming patio business? Here, pools have become all the rage. People cannot go on holiday, but enough people still have money. So what do they do? They try to make their home to resemble their holiday dream as much as possible, with decks, pools and outdoor furniture.

Re: Small Businesses Are Dying by the Thousands – and No One Is Tracking the Carnage

#26

Post by dharma1 »

Anecdote - I had a small amount of money invested in SME lending through an online p2p lending platform since last year (UK). Not super high interest rates, about 6-8%, all "AAA" rated businesses. Before covid, default rates were a couple of percent.

Right now 25% of the businesses in the loan book are late with repayments, I expect many of them will default and stop trading. And this is while government subsidies are still going - the subsidies will soon stop.

Covid has been devastating for small businesses which don't operate online and unfortunately I think the fallout will continue up to a year, until we get mass vaccination.

Re: Small Businesses Are Dying by the Thousands – and No One Is Tracking the Carnage

#27

Post by Voliokis »

klipt wrote: post #2

Isn't this tracked to some degree in unemployment stats? Is being laid off from a small business that different from being laid off from a large business?

The problem in this case isn't unemployment, and using unemployment to track it would be misleading. If small businesses die off, that means there will be less job openings for people to be hired into in the future. The US economy is already fragile. I'm not sure how it will cope with the kind of structural (long-term) unemployment that will result when too many businesses fold.

Per the article:

> While the businesses are small individually, the collective impact of their failures could be substantial. Firms with fewer than 500 employees account for about 44% of U.S. economic activity, according to a U.S. Small Business Administration report, and they employ almost half of all American workers.

It's appalling that all the focus in politics is on big companies and giving them handouts.

Re: Small Businesses Are Dying by the Thousands – and No One Is Tracking the Carnage

#28

Post by rjkennedy98 »

lockdownornot wrote: post #5

Guess who bought up real estate post-2009 crisis, when prices were at rock bottom? Wealthy individuals and corporations that had enough assets to withstand the storm and capitalize on a down market. Guess who will grab more market share post-COVID? Better yet, guess who wasn't affected by forced lockdowns and benefited during the worst of COVID? I find it very distressing that this massive transfer of wealth from sma…

Because it’s deliberate. The parasitic elite have been destroying the core of this country for almost half a century. The government (serving only the rich) doesn’t care about us and this virus is just another opportunity for them to gather more in their greedy arms.

Re: Small Businesses Are Dying by the Thousands – and No One Is Tracking the Carnage

#29

Post by mistrial9 »

jansan wrote: post #25

Who the hell killed the comment on the booming patio business? Here, pools have become all the rage. People cannot go on holiday, but enough people still have money. So what do they do? They try to make their home to resemble their holiday dream as much as possible, with decks, pools and outdoor furniture.

expensive home additions seem to be booming in the SF Bay Area, along with sudden residential vacancies, right next to them

Re: Small Businesses Are Dying by the Thousands – and No One Is Tracking the Carnage

#30

Post by mensetmanusman »

lockdownornot wrote: post #5

Guess who bought up real estate post-2009 crisis, when prices were at rock bottom? Wealthy individuals and corporations that had enough assets to withstand the storm and capitalize on a down market. Guess who will grab more market share post-COVID? Better yet, guess who wasn't affected by forced lockdowns and benefited during the worst of COVID? I find it very distressing that this massive transfer of wealth from sma…

A good discussion of pros and cons of consolidation should be included. E.g. economies of scale are almost always more energy / environmentally friendly (efficient).

Lack of diversity, bad. Increased monopoly power, bad. Increased consolidation for following regulations, good.

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