Main Street Monday — Small Businesses Prepare for Further COVID-19 Impacts

May 18, 2020

By Caity Witucki
Contributing Editor, Fraud Friday

Main Street Monday — Small Businesses Prepare for Further COVID-19 Impacts

On May 12, 2020, Veem, a global payment network for small-to-midsize businesses, released its inaugural report, “State of Small Business: Challenges and Paths Forward.” The report provides a snapshot of sentiment among 690 U.S. small business owners in light of the coronavirus pandemic. 

Here are some key findings reported in Veem’s “State of Small Business” report:

  • 80% of small businesses anticipate that COVID-19 will continue impacting their business over the next 12-16 months, while 13% responded they are unsure.

  • 55% of small business owners shared that the COVID-19 pandemic has already significantly impacted their revenue.

  • 90% of small businesses are bracing for an economic slowdown.

  • Only 30% of small businesses feel some level of confidence in the U.S. economy in 2020.

  • 54% of small business owners said that they have experienced either high or moderate impacts to their supply chain due to COVID-19.

To offset disruptions, small business owners are adopting creative solutions to reactively maintain a steady cadence of products and services including investing in new technology to support online operations. According to Veem’s report, the top two actions that businesses are taking are investing in new technology (24.29% of respondents) and rapidly pivoting their supply chain to make much-needed supplies (22.88%). Small business owners said that they also plan to apply for loans (58.63%) and decrease operational costs (51.76%) in preparation for an economic slowdown.

“When you look at the data, there’s surprising resiliency with these small and mid-sized businesses,” says  Veem chief executive officer, Marwan Forzley. “Despite all the uncertainty, the’re trying to make changes in their businesses, to either benefit from the situation or repurpose their business so that they’re not as badly impacted.”

Click here to download Veem’s Free “2020 State of Small Business: Challenges and Paths Forward,” report.