BOSTON — Small home furnishings business owners are particularly feeling the weight of the drop-off in consumer spending, according to a new survey by Alignable.
The survey of more than 4,000 randomly selected small businesses found 59% of those in the home furnishings sector said their income is half or less in 2025 compared to 2024. That’s second only to travel/lodging proprietors, 60% of which said they’re seeing their income cut in half.
Respondents pointed to tariffs, inflation and a decrease in customer spending for the revenue drop. Overall, 55% of the small businesses surveyed reported earning 50% or less vs. a year ago, which is up 2 percentage points from April’s 53% and 10 points from December 2024’s 45%.
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The No. 1 financial concern cited by those polled was finding new customers, followed by inflation.
“Small businesses continue to show grit and ingenuity in navigating this volatile economy,” said Eric Groves, CEO and co-founder of Alignable, a network of small business owners. “But they’re still facing real hardships.”
When asked what specific strategies small business owners are using to counteract economic headwinds and ongoing tariff hikes, they cited prioritizing customer retention, cutting costs and reducing overhead, networking more to find new customers, expanding into new markets or services and securing new referral partners.
Beyond these moves, the small business owners said they also found new suppliers or diversified their sourcing, raised their prices and/or delayed investments and hiring.
More than half of those surveyed (56%) expressed confidence that they will be able to adapt, build resilience and weather a recession if one occurs, which is now predicted by 54%. Nearly three-quarters (72%) said they have at least one month of cash reserves, while 52% have three months on hand.
The survey of 4,082 respondents was conducted between May 12 and June 3. Alignable also used data from 25,000 responses from surveys conducted in the past six months.
