Sales at small businesses were relatively unchanged week-over-week, maintaining consistent weekly performance throughout the month of July. Transaction counts were also flat (down 0.4%) from the previous week and 15.4% above the baseline.
Food and Drink sales increased 4.8% and are now 31.3% above baseline. Retail sales held steady (up 0.8%) and are now 19.1% above baseline. Sales at Services businesses were flat this past week, and are now 21.2% above baseline.
Active merchants dipped slightly (down 1.1%) and have yet to return to the baseline level, hovering just below the number of active merchants before the pandemic-related shutdown.
The CardFlight Small Business Impact Report is intended to provide insights into the impacts of coronavirus/COVID-19 on small businesses across the United States. The report has been featured in and/or cited by The Atlantic, Bloomberg TV, Business Insider, Digital Transactions, PaymentsJournal, PaymentsSource, and others.
Learn more about the report and our methodology.
First, we examine how coronavirus/COVID-19 is affecting small business sales by analyzing change in overall sales, number of transactions per business, and more.
Week-over-week sales at the small businesses in our sample were unchanged week-over-week. Overall sales remain 25% above the pre-COVID baseline week of March 2–8, 2020.
The transaction count metric represents the total number of transactions processed by the small businesses in our sample.
Last week, transaction counts decreased by 0.4%, and are now 15% above the pre-COVID baseline.
This metric measures all businesses who processed at least one transaction in the preceding week.
The number of active merchants was essentially unchanged from the previous week, down just 1.1% from the week of July 13–19. This metric remains 2% below the pre-COVID baseline.
The average number of transactions per active merchant increased by 0.6% last week. Overall transactions per active merchant are now nearly 18% above the baseline.
The payments industry has two broad categories for transactions based on where they occur.
At the onset of the coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic, card-present sales decreased at a faster rate than card-not-present sales. That trend ended around the week of April 6–12, when card-present sales began to slowly regain ground week-over-week, ending the week of July 20–26 nearly 8% above the baseline.
Next, we'll examine how coronavirus/COVID-19 is changing the manner by which consumers pay for their goods in-person.
The three ways US consumers typically use credit and debit cards for in-person transactions are:
Since magnetic stripe payments are a relatively low proportion of our payment volume, we're focusing on chip cards and contactless tap. We continue to see that overall growth in sales made via contactless payment methods are outpacing those made via EMV chip.
While payments made via EMV chip are now up 5.7% over their pre-COVID baseline levels, contactless payment methods are up more than 104%.
In this section of the CardFlight Small Business Impact Report, we take a closer look at small business performance by business category.
Sales at Food and Drink businesses increased by 4.8% week-over-week, and are now more than 31% above the pre-COVID baseline of March 2–8, 2020. Meanwhile, transaction counts increased by 2% week-over-week, and are now 40.7% above the baseline.
Sales at the Retail businesses in our sample increased by 0.8% week-over-week, and are now more than 19% above the pre-COVID baseline. Transaction counts increased by 2.9%, and are now 5.5% below the baseline week.
Sales at businesses in the Services category increased by 0.1%, and are now more than 21% above the pre-COVID baseline.
Transaction counts at Services businesses decreased by 2% last week. This metric remains more than 10% above the baseline.
Given the nature of small businesses as whole, at any time, there is a fair amount of new business formation and closures. The analysis below is our attempt to separate net changes in small-business activity from any pandemic-related market share shifts towards SwipeSimple.
Learn more about the SwipeSimple portfolio and our methodology for this section.
For the data tables on which the charts above were made, view the spreadsheet.
Next, we take a look at the month-over-month changes to sales, transaction counts, and number of active merchants at US small businesses. This analysis is based on "whole month" comparisons, using March, 2020 as the baseline month.
Sales at the small businesses in our sample ended the month of June 26% above May, and are now 36.7% above the pre-COVID baseline month.
Transaction counts ended the month of June 18.1% above May, and are now 45% above the pre-COVID baseline.
The number of active small businesses in our sample ended June up 8.5% over May, and are now 1.6% below the pre-COVID baseline month.
Do you have questions, feedback, or press inquiries? Contact us. You may also view past editions of the CardFlight Small Business Impact Report.
The CardFlight Small Business Impact Report is intended to provide insights into the impacts of coronavirus/COVID-19 on small businesses across the United States. The report and the data within have been featured in The Atlantic, Bloomberg TV, Business Insider, Digital Transactions, PaymentsJournal, PaymentsSource, and others.
The report is based on analysis of a representative sample of more than two million transactions processed by more than 60,000 small businesses who use CardFlight’s SwipeSimple software to accept credit and debit card payments.
To create this report, we analyzed a representative sample of millions of transactions processed by:
This report can be useful in understanding the impact of COVID-19 on small businesses at a hyper-local perspective and across the US. For up-to-date data regarding shifts in consumer spending among local businesses, impacts across different industries, and across cities and states, access the most recent report.
The typical SwipeSimple merchant has one to ten employees and less than five locations or mobile service points. The average active merchant represented in this data set processes approximately $130,000 in credit/debit card payments annually. The merchants are a mix of professional and personal service providers, specialty retail establishments, and food and drink purveyors.
