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Data for today’s episode is provided by Mercator Advisory Group’s report – U.S. Small Businesses are Reeling as a Result of COVID-19
Smaller Small Businesses Project More Pessimism Than Larger:
- In 2019, the most optimistic cohort of small business owners were those with 50-99 employees: 87% of them projected revenue growth in 2019 compared to 47% in 2020.
- In the 2020 COVID environment, the largest small businesses (>100 employees) are most optimistic: 63% project revenue growth in 2020 vs. 47% of firms with 50-100 employees.
- The same is true for profitability (59%) and employee growth (54%) vs. somewhat smaller firms with 50-100 employees: 49% profitability growth and 43% employee growth.
- Small business owners with less than 10 employees are typically the most pessimistic: 66% projected revenue growth in 2019 compared to 33% in 2020.
- Same goes for employee growth: just 27% of firms with fewer than 10 employees projected employee growth.
- 44% of the highest earning small businesses ($5-10 million) report they’ve been “negatively impacted” and another 21% report “very negatively impacted” by COVID-19.
- Interestingly, 9% of small business owners claim to have been “very positively impacted.”
About Report
Mercator Advisory Group’s new Insight Summary Report, 2020 Small Business PaymentsInsights, COVID-19 and B2B Payments & Cards – The Result of the Pandemic, reveals that U.S. small businesses have a much less positive view of the future than in previous years. The report is the first of three from Mercator’s annual Small Business PaymentsInsights Survey Series, a part of Mercator’s Primary Data Service. It is based on findings from Mercator Advisory Group’s online survey of 2,000 U.S. small businesses fielded in March and April 2020.
The report details the ways COVID-19 has changed small businesses and their outlook on the near-term future of their businesses. The report also provides insight into how small businesses bank and pay for goods and services, their banking relationships, how they view technology and their top business concerns.
“Small businesses have been hit hard by the pandemic. In many ways, more than their larger counterparts. Organizations that service small business have an opportunity to help these firms as they try to come out of the COVID crisis,” states the author of the report, Pete Reville, Director of Primary Data Services including Small Business PaymentsInsights Survey Series at Mercator Advisory Group.
