Profit margins for small businesses continue to dwindle. Labor costs are up. Material costs are up. Loan rates are up. Credit card processing fees are up. Rent is up. Insurance is up. Healthcare costs are up. Payment terms are getting worse. Terms customers are taking longer to pay.

Taking credit cards is expensive for a business. Paying for the terminals, the software, the seemingly constantly fees, cash flow while the transactions settle, charge back dispute issues, etc.

It is not possible for the costs associated with businesses to keep rising while the consumer demands prices stay flat. The market is broken.

Every time I try to raise prices at a minimum amount just to match my overhead, my globonational competitors seem to offer a sale and absorb costs because they can hold out longer than I can on flat or negative cash flow.

First I tried to just raise the prices, but I got tons of pushback for being too expensive, so then I tried to list out the fees but I got called an a-hole for charging them, so then I offered cash discounts but I got yelled at by people who refuse to carry cash.

What are small business owners supposed to do? It is literally impossible to compete with national conglomerates strictly in pricing. I can provide all the personal service and community outreach as possible but without the local consumer deciding to spend their money locally eventually small businesses simply will not exist anymore. And that’s just sad.

One day I think we’ll look back and realize that just maybe buying the absolute cheapest product we could afford from the absolute largest conglomerate we could find wasn’t the best idea.

We should be striving to support our local businesses and telling national chains to take a hike. Instead we’re demanding Brawndo in every aspect of life because it’s got electrolytes.

America is sick. We’re hyper obsessed with consuming as much as possible as quickly as possible without any thought to what we’re consuming or how it affects us.

This is true in everything from the food we eat to the entertainment media we consume to the unnecessary trinkets we fill our lives and houses with daily.

We’re a society of narcissistic gluttonous immature consumers with an insatiable appetite for anything all the time as long as we never have to pause to think or digest.

Happy Saturday. Hope you enjoy staring at your phones and televisions instead of spending time with your loved ones and then buying 100 things you don’t need and won’t remember off Amazon while complaining about the lack of local investments and opportunities.

I can’t participate in the charade anymore. I quit. So long and thanks for the fish.

This post was edited on 2/3/24 at 6:54 am