A picture of the challenges facing some small business owners in the province is becoming clearer.<\/p>\n
A new survey from Merchant Growth, a B.C.-based alternative financing company, provides a snapshot \u2014 and it\u2019s grim.<\/p>\n
It shows 86 per cent of B.C. business owners are making personal sacrifices to keep their business running, including reducing or eliminating their own salaries, delaying retirement, or selling off assets.<\/p>\n
Others are said to be returning to a full-time job while running their business on the side.<\/p>\n
Dave Gens, founder of Merchant Growth, tells 1130 NewsRadio the state of the economy plays a big role.<\/p>\n
Amid rising costs, the U.S. trade war, inflation, job insecurity and lower-than-usual revenues, he says consumer spending habits are changing as people try to stretch every dollar.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe current environment is causing stress for a lot of small businesses,\u201d said Gens.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe overall stats from our survey show about 22 per cent\u2026 say their performance has worsened in 2025. That\u2019s a big number and concerning. That\u2019s our B.C. number; the nationwide number was 29 per cent.\u201d<\/p>\n
Inflation was also listed as a major hurdle.<\/p>\n
\u201cEighty-two per cent of B.C. businesses that we surveyed cite inflation as their top challenge. So that\u2019s a massive number. Clearly, that\u2019s affecting a variety of different sectors. Input costs are up for a lot of small businesses. That causes prices to go up for consumers, and prices are still cited as the largest barrier to spending more money locally for Canadians.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEighty-two per cent of B.C. businesses that we surveyed cite inflation as their top challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gens says the provincial government could subsidize or offer funding to small businesses \u2014 though that may be a tall order, given Finance Minister Brenda Bailey forecast a record-high deficit of almost $11.6 billion for the first quarter of the 2025-2026 fiscal year.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Gens says some small business owners are scaling back their hours and operations and cutting staff to make ends meet.<\/p>\n
\u201cAusterity has been a part of it, at the same time as trying to figure out how to grow revenue. There\u2019s no single \u2018silver bullet,\u2019 and it really depends on what kind of business you\u2019re in and what it is you need to do to survive and thrive.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gens points out that some owners are feeling resilient and hopeful that things will improve in the future.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think there is a general agreement amongst society, really, that having a lot of small businesses is the type of world we want to live in, as opposed to an economy that\u2019s dominated by a few big companies.\u201d<\/p>\n
There is hope that small businesses may get some relief, at least in the short term, as people gear up for holiday shopping, but Gens says that will only make a difference if people shop locally.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A picture of the challenges facing some small business owners in the province is becoming clearer. A new…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":183187,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[45,49,48,46],"class_list":["post-183186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183186\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/183187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}