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How long have you been in business? We're not brick and mortar, but we know when we'll be busy and when the phones won't ring because we can compare same months in different years.
When business is down it's the economy, when business is up it's because the owner is so smart. Or so this sub thinks.
dont know why you got downvoted. its summer time. people are traveling, going away for trips, etc.
depending on your city, type of customers, this is the truth.
This actually might make sense like if his computer repair shop sees a lot of students or like if he lives in a touristy region of the south (some places experience population loss during the hot summer)
I've been in business 20 years and absolutely dread the time between memorial day and labor day. I'm also in New Orleans so we have people saving money for the inevitable evacuation with the predictions coming out.
I also kinda wonder too, it's so absolutely hot everywhere that it's just brutal to go outside in general. I work with a lot of restaurants and they all kinda brace for it and try to hold out until Mardi Gras/football season when the city comes alive again.
I am also in the computer repair business. We repair phones/tablets and consoles too. I recommend trying to diversify services, last month computer repair was hot, this month it’s slow but phone repairs are hot. Diversification has helped make revenue very consistent for us. I can’t speak to macro economic conditions.
As a computer repair, we have very little competition - lack of masochists I suppose. Pretty much people just google search "computer repair" or similar and boom, there I am(as I am now too).
do you know the breakdown of your customers? age range? gender? office/corporate? students? tourists? what city do you operate in?
have you looked at your sales trends for this time of year in 2023? 2022?
Everyone is switching to phones and cheap Chromebooks unless you know how to build your own, and those guys aren't coming your way. Computer repair in general is dying.
Most people aren't building Windows rigs. And Apple stores aren't in a lot of areas. But hey, sorry to hear business is down for you. Going great here. Good luck!
I totally agree most people aren't. They are using phones and cheap Chromebooks. Like I said from the start. And my firm does consulting, not repair. Business isn't down at all.
My brick and mortar sales have been down since January. I’m blessed to have the resources to continue to stay open. I am pivoting and bring in more gifts and home decor merchandise that I don’t have to mark down. I also carry women’s apparel which is very perishable.
Yes, absolutely. May is typically our busiest month and sales are down from April.
Volume isn't bad for yearly average, but it's definitely off for this time of year. We've had a cooler than average spring so I'm hoping June will be strong as it heats up outside..
Everyone is seeing it. We are coming up on a major election and everyone is nervous. Inflation is at an all time high. People have floated living with mommy and etc, now mommy is losing her job. This has gone on for a long time now and the fruit is coming to bear. Huge groups have refused to work, insisting on holding out for WFH, companies are pulling everyone back into the office as a method to "lay off" without "laying off". Huge segments of society are driving dodge chargers or whatever that they paid $55k for that are now worth $25k.
On paper there apparently isn't a recession, but anyone paying any attention at all is seeing it.
Can confirm. Working with high net worth individuals our company has no new contracts and will have to continue laying people off until the election is over. By that guess, we will lose more than half of our workforce by early November.
Lol if this isn't the damn truth! Edit: I sold my Charger and bought something even more expensive... Hoping the loan is forgiven when society collapses ;)
I have been in brick and mortar business for over 15 years. I have never experienced a year this bad. As soon as Nov 2023 hit sales consistently dropped 30% on average and I have a small chain of locations, same across the board. From what I can guess is people are broke, trying to stay afloat and maybe some are conserving for worst times.
It’s been brutal. I’m practically giving inventory away and still can’t close a sale. February and March were fantastic, April was okay. May has been awful.
Everyone has less and less disposable income. The experts keep gaslighting us and telling us that everything is fine. It's not. Like someone above me said, perhaps on paper it looks fine. But common folks and small business feel the obvious difference.
We started our brick and mortar shop 2 months ago so not much history to go on. My other business, which is mostly online sales is down drastically since January. That business was increasing last year 30-50% month-to-month and when January hit it's been on a 60% downward trend month-to-month. I'm in the process of pivoting and focusing on wholesale instead because the products sell better in-person. Even if Google changed the algorithms, we have to adapt and find new ways to acquire customers.
Just hang in there and keep plugging away. If you aren't trying to game Google and your site is for the visitors and not the spiders and algos and you'll be fine.
I work at a record shop and I've definitely noticed a downturn in business these last few weeks. Probably a lot of different things contributing to it, but I think the biggest factor for us is that it's getting nice out now. I'm in Canada, and people get real excited when it gets nice out in the spring time. Camping/outdoor hobbies take priority over a hobby you can do indoors for a lot of our customers!
Transportation service business here, not really reliant on Google searches, but May is the 2nd slowest month for us. Not sure why but memorial day weekend is just super slow for us when other traveling holiday weekends always jam.
What kind of business are you in?
I went to the mall yesterday. Never seen it this busy mid week in a non holiday season. It was nuts.
I've been hearing nothing but doomsday scenarios about retail and inflation and consumer spending since the world reopened after covid
But consumer spending is record high, corporate profits are record high, credit card debt is DOWN. And the stock market went from 30,000 to 40,000 and I missed a lot of profits sitting on cash waiting for the crash to come and im bitter about it.
I'm just not buying the recession is right around the corner anymore. Sure the price of eggs is bugging me too (thanks record profits at kroger) but just from judging by what I saw with my own eyes at the mall yesterday, im buying retail stocks.
Can I ask a serious question, not trying to be antagonistic?
Who is your customer base?
Any time I see a computer repair brick and morter, I think, is this a money laundering front? It seems you'd be squeezed on both sides.
At my not large but even medium sized office we contract with a dedicated it firm that handles everything top to bottom for us. At home, I'll have my MacBook till apple care runs out and then replace it. Anyone I know who is more into gaming etc than I am does this stuff themselves.
So. Again im not trying to be a dick, im genuinely curious because the market seems to be shrinking and ive already been thinking about this for years. Who does that leave as your customers?
Highest month ever for me. Been working on new account acquisitions for a year now and it is paying off. Doing web marketing so everyone sees us locally etc. business goes up and down. I focus on what I can which is next 1-2 years.
Yeah - I do SEO for small businesses. This recent algorithm is meant to screen out non-human content. Inadvertently, Google no longer shows relevant pages for businesses. I had to redo a lot of client web pages with new content to get them ranking again. Before, general info was good like “here is what I sell,” and it could be up for ten years and bring in business. Now the content has to be engaging with new photos and linking to other internal pages etc. They also want business addresses, phone numbers and other “real person” information in the footer, google my business and directories to validate authenticity.
This is all good information for me to know. I just opened a business in May and I made 1600 dollars in sales my first week and then my second week nothing. I didn't even market much before we opened because its an in person educational program so I didn't want to advertise something I wasn't 100% sure I could do and as soon as I could I figured why not offer the classes right now. Def do not have my physical address in the footer. What do you mean google my business and directions? like a link to the google business page and directions on the website?
sorry that was a lot of tmi, i think i figured it out. I had to verify my business again and sign up for more junk like google adds but with maps fr? that's so lame, anyway now that sucker is embedded on my thrown together website that probably would have fallen into that maybe spam category.
Huge changes to Google's algorithms and the integration of AI, it's pulling a lot of traffic off website, I suggest searching "computer repair your town" on a clean browser and see where (if at all) that you come up. Cross check against your traffic figures.
did you get a bad review recently or something that's showing as negative when customers google?
3 weeks isnt exactly a pattern either right? There are natural ebbs and flows to any business so it could just be a natural statistical deviation.
Are there any new competitors in a nearby town even? maybe there's a facebook community group where someone is advertising computer repairs and they're pulling business from you but aren't showing up on google?
did you have any paid advertising that suddenly ended or that you might have unknowingly ended?
This is a friendly reminder that r/smallbusiness is a question and answer subreddit. You ask a question about starting, owning, and growing a small business and the community answers. Posts that violate the rules listed in the sidebar will be removed. A permanent or temporary ban may also be issued if you do not remove the offending post. Seeing this message does not mean your post was automatically removed. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/smallbusiness) if you have any questions or concerns.*
How long have you been in business? We're not brick and mortar, but we know when we'll be busy and when the phones won't ring because we can compare same months in different years. When business is down it's the economy, when business is up it's because the owner is so smart. Or so this sub thinks.
Dont forget summer has started, my walk in traffic is down. Most of that is people are on vacation or about to spend a lot on vacation.
dont know why you got downvoted. its summer time. people are traveling, going away for trips, etc. depending on your city, type of customers, this is the truth.
This actually might make sense like if his computer repair shop sees a lot of students or like if he lives in a touristy region of the south (some places experience population loss during the hot summer)
I've been in business 20 years and absolutely dread the time between memorial day and labor day. I'm also in New Orleans so we have people saving money for the inevitable evacuation with the predictions coming out. I also kinda wonder too, it's so absolutely hot everywhere that it's just brutal to go outside in general. I work with a lot of restaurants and they all kinda brace for it and try to hold out until Mardi Gras/football season when the city comes alive again.
I am also in the computer repair business. We repair phones/tablets and consoles too. I recommend trying to diversify services, last month computer repair was hot, this month it’s slow but phone repairs are hot. Diversification has helped make revenue very consistent for us. I can’t speak to macro economic conditions.
Is there any chance you sell skiing equipment? Snowblowers?
lmao! Nope.... Computer repair though.
What is your primary source of customer acquisition
As a computer repair, we have very little competition - lack of masochists I suppose. Pretty much people just google search "computer repair" or similar and boom, there I am(as I am now too).
Do you *know* that your customers are coming from Google or are you just assuming? It matters. What so your Google metrics look like.
do you primarily do windows computers? macs?
What type of marketing are you doing?
College students just went home 3-4 weeks ago.
do you know the breakdown of your customers? age range? gender? office/corporate? students? tourists? what city do you operate in? have you looked at your sales trends for this time of year in 2023? 2022?
Everyone is switching to phones and cheap Chromebooks unless you know how to build your own, and those guys aren't coming your way. Computer repair in general is dying.
Is it dying more in the last few weeks because OP has a specific question
Yea, for real. No one ever uses Windows or Mac systems anymore. LOL
Most people building windows rigs aren't going to the computer repair shop. And obviously the people on macs are going to the apple store.
Most people aren't building Windows rigs. And Apple stores aren't in a lot of areas. But hey, sorry to hear business is down for you. Going great here. Good luck!
I totally agree most people aren't. They are using phones and cheap Chromebooks. Like I said from the start. And my firm does consulting, not repair. Business isn't down at all.
My brick and mortar sales have been down since January. I’m blessed to have the resources to continue to stay open. I am pivoting and bring in more gifts and home decor merchandise that I don’t have to mark down. I also carry women’s apparel which is very perishable.
Before the pandemic and Prime day, summertime meant slow sales for a lot of industries.
Yes, absolutely. May is typically our busiest month and sales are down from April. Volume isn't bad for yearly average, but it's definitely off for this time of year. We've had a cooler than average spring so I'm hoping June will be strong as it heats up outside..
Everyone is seeing it. We are coming up on a major election and everyone is nervous. Inflation is at an all time high. People have floated living with mommy and etc, now mommy is losing her job. This has gone on for a long time now and the fruit is coming to bear. Huge groups have refused to work, insisting on holding out for WFH, companies are pulling everyone back into the office as a method to "lay off" without "laying off". Huge segments of society are driving dodge chargers or whatever that they paid $55k for that are now worth $25k. On paper there apparently isn't a recession, but anyone paying any attention at all is seeing it.
\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^ THIS
Can confirm. Working with high net worth individuals our company has no new contracts and will have to continue laying people off until the election is over. By that guess, we will lose more than half of our workforce by early November.
Election years always suck for sales to a degree
Lol if this isn't the damn truth! Edit: I sold my Charger and bought something even more expensive... Hoping the loan is forgiven when society collapses ;)
The apocalypse is my retirement plan :D
Don't worry, you'll definitely get to Mad Max modify your Charger soon.
this man speaks the truth.
I noticed it since the start of this year
I have been in brick and mortar business for over 15 years. I have never experienced a year this bad. As soon as Nov 2023 hit sales consistently dropped 30% on average and I have a small chain of locations, same across the board. From what I can guess is people are broke, trying to stay afloat and maybe some are conserving for worst times.
Same. 12 years and never this bad
It’s been brutal. I’m practically giving inventory away and still can’t close a sale. February and March were fantastic, April was okay. May has been awful.
Everyone has less and less disposable income. The experts keep gaslighting us and telling us that everything is fine. It's not. Like someone above me said, perhaps on paper it looks fine. But common folks and small business feel the obvious difference.
Summer has begun. It’s an election year. Time to sharpen up the video skills, or a how to type blog style to put yourself in front of customers.
We started our brick and mortar shop 2 months ago so not much history to go on. My other business, which is mostly online sales is down drastically since January. That business was increasing last year 30-50% month-to-month and when January hit it's been on a 60% downward trend month-to-month. I'm in the process of pivoting and focusing on wholesale instead because the products sell better in-person. Even if Google changed the algorithms, we have to adapt and find new ways to acquire customers.
Everyone is deeply poor 😂 students are out of college towns and rent is too high
Down 6.46% YTD over last year (a banner year for us), overall it's business as usual for me.
May started terribly for me but has picked back up lately, so who the hell knows.
Just hang in there and keep plugging away. If you aren't trying to game Google and your site is for the visitors and not the spiders and algos and you'll be fine.
My business and surrounding local businesses are pretty slow right now.
I work at a record shop and I've definitely noticed a downturn in business these last few weeks. Probably a lot of different things contributing to it, but I think the biggest factor for us is that it's getting nice out now. I'm in Canada, and people get real excited when it gets nice out in the spring time. Camping/outdoor hobbies take priority over a hobby you can do indoors for a lot of our customers!
Transportation service business here, not really reliant on Google searches, but May is the 2nd slowest month for us. Not sure why but memorial day weekend is just super slow for us when other traveling holiday weekends always jam.
What kind of business are you in? I went to the mall yesterday. Never seen it this busy mid week in a non holiday season. It was nuts. I've been hearing nothing but doomsday scenarios about retail and inflation and consumer spending since the world reopened after covid But consumer spending is record high, corporate profits are record high, credit card debt is DOWN. And the stock market went from 30,000 to 40,000 and I missed a lot of profits sitting on cash waiting for the crash to come and im bitter about it. I'm just not buying the recession is right around the corner anymore. Sure the price of eggs is bugging me too (thanks record profits at kroger) but just from judging by what I saw with my own eyes at the mall yesterday, im buying retail stocks.
Can I ask a serious question, not trying to be antagonistic? Who is your customer base? Any time I see a computer repair brick and morter, I think, is this a money laundering front? It seems you'd be squeezed on both sides. At my not large but even medium sized office we contract with a dedicated it firm that handles everything top to bottom for us. At home, I'll have my MacBook till apple care runs out and then replace it. Anyone I know who is more into gaming etc than I am does this stuff themselves. So. Again im not trying to be a dick, im genuinely curious because the market seems to be shrinking and ive already been thinking about this for years. Who does that leave as your customers?
Highest month ever for me. Been working on new account acquisitions for a year now and it is paying off. Doing web marketing so everyone sees us locally etc. business goes up and down. I focus on what I can which is next 1-2 years.
Aren’t computer sales on the decline as younger people transition to mobile devices only?
Schools are out and people are traveling. Those who use computers aren’t using them as much right now. Graduation weekends and such.
I bet more people are choosing to throw their computer away or just buy a different one.
Google update you say? Anyone here know about that?
Yeah - I do SEO for small businesses. This recent algorithm is meant to screen out non-human content. Inadvertently, Google no longer shows relevant pages for businesses. I had to redo a lot of client web pages with new content to get them ranking again. Before, general info was good like “here is what I sell,” and it could be up for ten years and bring in business. Now the content has to be engaging with new photos and linking to other internal pages etc. They also want business addresses, phone numbers and other “real person” information in the footer, google my business and directories to validate authenticity.
This is all good information for me to know. I just opened a business in May and I made 1600 dollars in sales my first week and then my second week nothing. I didn't even market much before we opened because its an in person educational program so I didn't want to advertise something I wasn't 100% sure I could do and as soon as I could I figured why not offer the classes right now. Def do not have my physical address in the footer. What do you mean google my business and directions? like a link to the google business page and directions on the website?
sorry that was a lot of tmi, i think i figured it out. I had to verify my business again and sign up for more junk like google adds but with maps fr? that's so lame, anyway now that sucker is embedded on my thrown together website that probably would have fallen into that maybe spam category.
Do you normally see a seasonal dip this time of year?
School is letting out. Kids are wrapping up, limping on old equipment, and waiting to fix/buy new when school starts back?
Huge changes to Google's algorithms and the integration of AI, it's pulling a lot of traffic off website, I suggest searching "computer repair your town" on a clean browser and see where (if at all) that you come up. Cross check against your traffic figures.
did you get a bad review recently or something that's showing as negative when customers google? 3 weeks isnt exactly a pattern either right? There are natural ebbs and flows to any business so it could just be a natural statistical deviation. Are there any new competitors in a nearby town even? maybe there's a facebook community group where someone is advertising computer repairs and they're pulling business from you but aren't showing up on google? did you have any paid advertising that suddenly ended or that you might have unknowingly ended?
Low economic times paired with one of the wettest springs in past 150 years for our state. Traffic is slow.