As we come out of an uncertain year the one certainty is that the path to fully reopening The We Are Here January 2022 survey explores employment, crime, revenue, solutions and needs for 113 reporting Portland brick and mortar small businesses. Businesses include restaurant, retail and service sectors.
Key Takeaways:
| We need to deploy new and immediate crime mitigation efforts. We’re proposing:Redirect resources like PBOT to help police with crime investigationsInvest in nightly patrols to shine lights on main street businessesWhile 2020 saw a significant shift from in store on to online shopping, 2021 saw a big return to in store commerce. 80% of small businesses conducted 70%+ of business in store. 47% of small businesses saw an increase in 2021 Black Friday weekend sales over 2020. It’s worth noting that 56% of Small Shops Big Hearts Shop Small Win Big Holiday Event participants saw an increase for that same weekend. This tells us that in store shopping continues to be small business secret sauce. This is an important factor when considering your marketing and operations investments. |
Regarding ARPA funding, overwhelmingly your top priorities are:|
– Addressing Houselessness
– Grants for Commercial Rent Relief
– Support of Employee Benefit Programs
– Reimbursement for Operations Investments due to covid
– Giving Stimulus Dollars to Community Members that can only be spent at Small Businesses
| We are sharing this data with you so you can see where you stand with your peers. More extensive survey data is available in the Bricks Need Mortar member portal. |
| We also share this data with policy makers to make the case to further invest in the needs of our small businesses. |