As we've watched so many of our fellow small business owners either shrink their businesses or fully close, we feel it's time that both our elected officials and the general public recognize that small businesses in Portland are stuck in survival mode. And until we better support them, the city will not move forward positively and we risk losing the places, the neighborhoods, and the character that collectively makes Portland the amazing city that it is. I invite you to take a minute (or ten) to read what got us here, why it matters, and how we can fix it. And please also take a minute to sign our petition to Save Small Business in Portland.
Stuck in Survival Mode
The state of small business in Portland
By Erica Lurie, Founder/designer Garnish Apparel
As a small business owner I am constantly asked “how is business?” And every time this question is posed I need to make the decision to either give the response that that I’m supposed to give and everyone wants to hear, “business is good!”, or risk being a “Debbie Downer” and give the response that everyone needs to hear, “business is harder than ever, and that’s not just my business, that is most small businesses in this city today.”
Portland small businesses are struggling still and the public needs to know. I’m here to edify you on what got us here, where we find ourselves, how we might get ourselves out of this current state, and what we, as a community, stand to lose if we don’t.
The predicament we find ourselves in today has been both a slow burn and a perfect storm. And as a 20+ year business veteran I have enough time under my belt to confidently paint a picture over two decades.
Let’s start from what I believe is the beginning of the slide… the invention and rise of social media. This shiny new object, labeled Facebook, was a fantastic opportunity to tell your own story, on your own timeline, and provided a direct and affordable way to reach not only your existing customers, but new customers as well. But as quickly as social media rose, the landscape also changed. A dizzying number of platforms were developed, algorithms changed, and attention spans shortened. Before we knew it, small businesses were finding themselves like Mickey Mouse trying to carry a thousand buckets of water to satiate a content-thirsty monster.
Meanwhile, customers' buying behaviors were starting to shift and another behemoth had entered the ring… Amazon. Even if what you offered wasn’t available and undercut by Amazon, the new standard of “buy it from your couch at half the price and have it arrive tomorrow without paying shipping” was born. How does a small business compete with that? You can’t. Even if your business model is not built on affordability and convenience, these factors have become so tantamount to life these days that clients subconsciously factor them into most purchase decisions they make. And instead of leveling the playing field, local, state, and national governments made it even worse as they kowtowed to try to curry favor from this new driver of the economy. Rather than ask Amazon for their fair share of tax revenue, they offered tax incentives that in reality ran counter to their constituents’ best interest and further incentivized monopoly by the giant (more on that in a bit). The new modus operandi of everything fast and cheap is not on a trajectory to change anytime soon and is incompatible with the business models of small, locally focused, community-minded retailers.
As businesses were trying to grapple with this new set of hurdles, COVID 19 entered the picture. The now infamous “pivot” turned business owners into bobblehead dolls. While everyone’s lives shifted incomprehensively, business owners scrambled to find ways to stay afloat long enough to make it through. But weeks turned to months, months turned to years. In the meantime, people hunkered down and adapted to life within the confines of their own homes. What they discovered is that they could get all the entertainment they wanted on the bevy of streaming services now available. Their favorite (pivoting) restaurants had signed up for Door Dash so eating out became eating in. They no longer needed a work wardrobe or a new dress to go to the symphony (the arts are suffering alongside small business). Even their book groups went virtual and books were now easier to get on Kindle than from your local bookstore two blocks away. And with inflation soaring and jobs shifting, goods were getting expensive and people were thinking twice about what they needed and what they could do without. So businesses either needed to adapt to the new set of needs or become obsolete. Some did the former, many the latter. Which brings us to the next obstacle… A troubled downtown.
Between storefront vacancies, vandalism, social justice rioting, an opioid crisis, and an increasingly growing houseless population, Portland began to suffer both real issues and a declining reputation. And although the population on the whole has been frustrated by this, small businesses have taken the brunt of the blow (of course no one has been affected more than those experiencing houselessness, mental health crises and addiction, so in no way do I wish to minimize that). By being, quite literally, on the ground floor of these issues, it has exhausted an already tired lot of business owners. When the demands of owning a business require the ability to fire on all cylinders at all times, to be consumed with these issues is incompatible with success. And furthermore, as a result of Portland’s tarnished reputation we were losing clients left and right as tourists were steering clear and even those living outside of the core of the city were scared to come downtown. According to an article in the Oregonian on January 31st, 2025, “The number of pedestrians who lived, visited or went to work downtown remained 36% lower last year than in 2019, just before the COVID-19 pandemic, when 42.8 million people roamed the urban core.”
As the rest of the country was slowly emerging from the pandemic, Portland was slow to rebound. This was not only based on the factors just discussed, but also stricter COVID mitigation recommendations and a general public that had really taken lockdown to heart. (Certainly Oregon’s mortality rate was comparatively low, which I’m grateful for, but it didn’t come without its cost on the state’s economy.).
As small businesses tried to resume they found themselves lacking funds, customers, competitive advantages, and energy to rebound. Most importantly, they found expenses were soaring on many fronts. Inflation on raw or finished goods was killing them. Even the little things added up, like the increased dues and subscriptions for the myriad of software and apps necessary to run a business in 2025. But most importantly, we were, and continue to be crushed by increased labor costs. With the cost of living adjustments totally nearly 25% accumulatively since 2020, small businesses are finding that their largest expense is increasing exponentially. This doesn’t even factor in necessary wage increases in response to increased responsibilities or to keep pace with a competitive market for hiring. And a full recovery requires businesses to be fully staffed, not on an austerity plan and scraping by with minimal personnel. However, how do you have the confidence to hire again when expenses continue to climb and sales not only fail to keep pace, but for over 50% of us are flat or falling. According to the Bricks Need Mortar We are Here 2025 survey, 12% of Portland businesses surveyed had sales that were roughly even in 2024 when compared to 2023 (that’s my business), 36% of businesses were down by 10-20%, and 5% of businesses were down 30-70%.
Unfortunately, there is very little to point to in the immediate future that gives us confidence. Tariffs and a plummeting stock market are certainly not the green lights we were hoping for.
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So small businesses can’t keep up with the times, why should you care? First I will appeal to the head and then I will appeal to the heart.
From an economic standpoint, the number one reason small business success is important is that they provide roughly half of the nation's jobs. Depending on what source you look to I have seen estimates between 46% and 61% of all jobs in the US are provided by small businesses. Yet, I have seen local governments trip over themselves to try to incentivize large companies to move or expand into their area, promising hundreds of jobs. Hundreds of jobs does not even come close to the amount provided by even a small portion of the small businesses in the same area. If your priority is to bring and retain jobs to an area why not help support the little guys rather than offering large tax cuts for already wealthy corporations?
In my tiny business alone I employ the following people in house: a full-time Seamstress, a full-time Stylist, a part-time Stylist, a part-time Donations Coordinator, and we are looking to hire a full-time Marketing Manager. I also work extensively with the following people as contractors: two (and sometimes a third) Production Seamstresses, a Book Keeper, a Payroll/Tax Prep firm, an HR Consultant, a Cleaning Service Provider, and a Tech/Marketing Consultant. All of these are local small businesses. This is not to mention all of the various vendors that I use locally for other goods and services (more on that to follow). This is more than a dozen people my business alone is either entirely supporting, or contributes to significantly.
The second important economic driver is that as small businesses thrive, communities are attractive to existing residents, potential residents, larger companies and tourists alike. They bring character, originality, and personality to neighborhoods (not to mention tax dollars). Plus, people connect with and appreciate having them in their communities. According to the Pew Research Center “Most U.S. adults (86%) say small businesses have a positive effect on the way things are going in the country these days, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey. Small businesses, in fact, receive by far the most positive reviews of any of the nine U.S. institutions we asked about, outranking even the military and churches.” Lots of empty storefronts does not send the signal that your city is thriving and many of those storefronts would be occupied by small businesses with just a bit more support.
On the economics front, rather than the theoretical, but unfounded theory of trickle down economics, we ought to rely on the much more proven phenomenon of supporting the small businesses because they in turn will support each other and their community. Any small business owner knows how important every sale is and will work, especially hard to keep both their personal and company’s dollars in the community. But eventually, as small business owners attempt to squeeze blood from a stone, they will be forced to also seek the cheapest option to fulfill their supply needs and will, as a last resort, turn to resources other than what is offered in their own city or town. This has been a devastating choice that I have made at times recently, going against everything I stand for. So choosing to shop local can have a magnifying effect in the community and result in what could be labeled a “trickle out” economic model.
A thriving community makes more than just economic sense. It dramatically improves quality of life and is beneficial for the environment. Take a moment to stop and imagine your neighborhood with no local shops in it. Imagine all of your goods coming from fulfillment centers and the industrial sprawl that would take over the remaining green spaces of your community. Couple that with the environmental toll from shipping everything to individual’s homes and this would only exacerbate the environmental crisis we are in at the moment. Shopping small and local is shopping sustainably.
Now imagine the loss of human connection as face-to-face interaction would feel as rare as it did during the pandemic. This is hard to put a value on, but I know it is a large part of why my clients enjoy shopping with me. We have formed friendships over the years - a trust and bond that cannot be replaced by online shopping. I am one part designer, one part stylist, and one part therapist. Boosting morale and creating connection is something that you can’t put a number on, in fact, as we learned in the pandemic, it is truly priceless.
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So how exactly can we as individuals and as a society help support small business?
I’ll start with systemic changes. Cities, towns, and states can build and invest in a stronger infrastructure of wrap-around services. Portland has just created an Office of Small Business, which is a great start, but after hearing from the head of it at a recent meeting of Bricks Need Mortar my first inclination is to say that it will not be nearly robust enough to make a dent. Here is what I would propose.
When a business signs up for their business license they should be assigned a general advisor. This person would help shepherd them through each step of their business life, from what permits they need to hang their sign to resources for selling upon retirement. They would be connected to a larger set of advisors (either internal, or contracted through other small businesses or non-profits) for complementary advice on everything from marketing to financial literacy to HR advice. There are quite a few non-profits that offer some of these services, but nothing is comprehensive and it can be time consuming for businesses to determine what is offered and which organization provides the right type of help. And as a small business owner, time is your most precious resource. Unless you are a small business owner yourself or have worked extensively in them, it can be hard to understand the number of plates they are juggling. For example, my job titles include the following: CEO, CFO, COO, CMO, Apparel Designer, Accessories Designer, Jewelry Designer, Sourcing Manager, Costing Manager, Pattern Maker, Grader, Fabric Tester, Sample Seamstress, Product Developer, Quality Control Manager, Model, Photographer, Photo Editor, Web Developer, Website Manager, Content Creator, Social Media Director, Head of Human Resources, Stylist, Client Outreach Coordinator, Maintenance Person. This may seem like an exaggeration, but I kid you not. At larger companies (like when I worked at adidas 20 years ago), there was not only a person filling each of these jobs, it was whole departments! So as a small business owner, if you could receive competent free advice for many of the challenges that arise with all of these job titles, it would streamline your workload incredibly and free you up to do better work, more concentrated work, and then allow you to expand and hire out more of these positions. A general advisor would be versed in how to connect you with the right resources and could direct business owners to the best fit as needed.
Advisors would also have a central website and monthly email newsletter disseminating information and connecting business owners to their needs. Having everything come from one entity would be so helpful… things like announcements of the small business repair grants offered by Prosper Portland to reminders that estimated taxes are due or that employment laws have changed.
Another way to help businesses compete is to facilitate discounts across a spectrum of goods and services. Things like credit card processing or shipping (both receiving goods and sending them) for a consortium of small businesses. Perhaps USPS could offer significant discounts for businesses under a certain size. As we’ve been forced to either offer free shipping or prices that don’t cover our costs, delivery trucks of large companies flood our streets. Oregon is experiencing a shortfall when comparing their transportation budget to the state’s crumbling infrastructure. Large corporations are using those roads disproportionately and thus tax payers and small businesses and thereby subsidizing their shipping services. That needs to change.
As a member of Bricks Need Mortar, I am able to access some of these services I just proposed. However, they are a small team, without significant government funding so they can only do so much, membership is paid by its members, and they are really geared toward a specific subset of small businesses. It would be great if they were able to offer more services, offer complimentary membership, and have the resources to include all small businesses under their umbrella. This is a great program that exists and could be built upon to offer even more value.
On the topic of government action, local and state governments need to stop giving tax breaks to already wealthy large corporations and owners. I’m going to pick on Amazon again here, and it’s owner, Jeff Bezos. In a 2023 article on Think Out Loud by OPB they highlighted a potential Amazon data center going into Morrow County in Eastern Oregon. The county was offering nearly $1 Billion in tax breaks for a data center, citing the fact that it would bring in new high paying permanent jobs. However, a data center, by nature, does not provide many permanent jobs and Amazon would not give them a figure. When asked about these tax incentives, David Sykes, chair of the Morrow County Commission said “I’m not sure how the billion was calculated. I think it was from real market value. Like I said, the other two projects: wind and solar, they don’t pay real market value; and agriculture doesn’t pay full market value on their property. They both get tax reductions. Other businesses, food processing that has expanded in the county, they receive tax reductions. I don’t know what baseline they used because none of those three will pay from the real market value as they call it. Homes, small businesses, they pay real market value.”
In an article by Scott Galloway on April 2nd of this year entitled Earners vs. Owners, Galloway writes, “In 2007, Jeff Bezos made $46 million in actual income, yet he paid zero dollars in federal income tax, because he was able to shield that income with paper losses as an Owner (in reality, his wealth increased $3.8 billion that year). In 2011, not only did Bezos pay no income tax again, he claimed and received a $4,000 child tax credit — a program intended to lower child poverty. If you paid federal income tax in 2011, you helped feed Jeff Bezos’ kids.”
When large corporations and their owners are given huge tax incentives it’s both tax payers and small businesses subsidizing them. And in many cases, as the one above, those large corporations are not really bringing the jobs that people hope they will bring. Imagine if that $1 Billion dollars went to small businesses in Morrow County instead (either in the form of tax incentives or in support structure as I just lined out). That truly WOULD provide far greater amounts of jobs (remember, over half the jobs in this country come from small business), and for goods and services that are truly local. And as I already pointed out, this would further stimulate the economy by “trickle out” economics.
Perhaps the city or state could offer emergency grants to small businesses to help with increased labor costs, much like the Paycheck Protection Program did during COVID. These grants could help businesses bridge the gap between what they can afford to pay staff and what staff needs to make in order to keep up with rising costs of their own.
Now, as individuals, how can you prevent the death of small business in your community? The first step is awareness. I think one thing that frustrates small business owners the most is that the general public either has no idea what is going on, they don’t know how bad the crisis is, they don’t understand what they stand to lose, or they just don’t care. I would like to think that if people really understood the full severity of the situation they WOULD care, which is why I’m choosing to be the canary in the coal mine. I also understand that individuals these days are feeling a lot of financial pressure themselves and so they turn towards less expensive options, which often is not small business. However, I also know there are plenty of people who can afford to make better choices with their dollars and are instead falling prey to the convenience of “buy it from my couch for less, get it delivered free the next day.” And when you take the time to notice how many delivery trucks from large corporations (one in particular) are flooding our streets every day you will start to understand how many people are subscribing to this mentality. I will fully admit that it takes a lot of effort sometimes to shop local over shopping large corporations. It can be a vicious cycle… small businesses find that they can not compete on price and convenience so they stop carrying certain items and then consumers have no choice but to buy it online from a large corporation. And since they take up more than half the top online search spots, you have to work to find what you want elsewhere. But it can be done, it NEEDS to be done.
So, start with awareness and then move on to action. Start paying attention to how and where you spend your money. See which purchases you can shift to local businesses, in your community or elsewhere. When you go to purchase something and can’t find it locally, use the Internet as a search engine and then go directly to the website of that manufacturer. Be willing to spend a few dollars more knowing that the money you’ll spend will go back into your community, not only paying for the sales clerk or waitstaff that is right in front of you, but the myriad of other businesses that benefit from “trickle out”economics.
Instead of relying on your neighbors to prop up the places you love, get out and enjoy your city or town and all that it has to offer. Rather than bring home a frozen pizza from the grocery store for a movie at home on Friday night, head out on the town to a food cart and local theater. Go see a play, dance performance, or comedy night instead of binging on the latest Netflix series. Go get styled by a local stylist. Go try the new restaurant that opened… or the one that has been good for 20 years and is still miraculously standing.
Perhaps you even track your purchases, delineating them by: online big business, in person big business (which still provides some local jobs), online local (a fantastic way to show financial support), in person local (the best… businesses need that emotional support as well as financial support). And each month try to shift a few more dollars toward local.
As you try to make that shift, consider HOW you’re doing so. For example, if you typically make your big purchases for a home project at Home Depot and then run to the local hardware store for the nails that you forgot to purchase, flip that narrative. Make the big purchases locally and then if you absolutely need to fill in with something that you can’t find then go for the bigger box stores.
Also, reconsider what it means to “support a local business”. All the time I have clients that, in their brain, are Garnish Apparel clients. If my business name came up in conversation, they would proudly chirp that they shop with me. However, when I actually look at their purchase history, they have not purchased in over a decade. When you think about some of the businesses in your community that you like, consider the last time you purchased something from them and the size of that purchase. Do you really deserve the badge of considering yourself a customer of theirs? If all of their customers shopped like you do, could they sustain their business model? Consider what you have done to further their business in the past year or two. And it’s not enough to just hit the “like” button on their Instagram account. If you want to be a small biz champion then you have to actively promote them. Share their posts. Tell your friends about how awesome they are. Go to bat for the businesses you love with both your dollars and your time.
Want to do more personally to move the needle systematically? I realize that it can feel hard to enact systemic change (especially these days), but tell your local officials that they need to prioritize the health of the small business community. Tell them the importance, and show them the importance on voting day. If you notice a small business struggling, tag your local state official and pressure them to do more.
Lastly, if you have friends and family that are small business owners give them the support that they so desperately need. We’re tired, we’re stretched thin, we’re fighting tooth and nail for what we love, what we’ve poured our hearts into for years, or decades. And as the mountain we try to climb feels as though it only gets steeper, to know that our clients, our friends, our families have our backs allows us to keep climbing. When I was first starting my business and it was so challenging, I had a friend tell me to think of it as a big boulder and if I just keep putting my shoulder into it, it will eventually start to roll. My boulder started to really roll before the pandemic, Now I feel like it’s pushing back at me, threatening to flatten me. With sales flat the past few years (actually still down since pre-pandemic) and payroll expenses more than 25% up, we’ve been understaffed for 5 years to keep on the right side of the ledger. We are trying to hire, but will only be able to afford the position if it pays for itself. In today’s economy that is a big ask and it’s scary. We need to be able to see the path forward and receive the support we need to continue to venture down that path.
Sadly, I know so many business owners who feel the same way right now, with expenses continuing to rise and sales getting syphoned off to big businesses offering cheaper goods, something has to give or we are going to see so many small businesses shutter and our communities really change in the next few years, not for the better. When it comes to saving them it will take a true shift in mindset, from those with the power to make laws and build programs to every individual who can choose to spend their dollars more wisely. I encourage you to truly invest in your community, because it will take a village to save the village. But it’s possible.
Erica Lurie
Founder/Designer
Garnish Apparel
404 NW 12th Ave
Portland, OR 97209
Erica Lurie is the founder / designer at Garnish Apparel, a line of clothing and accessories, designed and sustainably made in Portland since 2004. Professional styling available in their Pearl District brick and mortar.
To add your voice to the conversation, please consider signing our petition to Save Small Business In Portland.
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