The COVID-19 pandemic has brought a myriad of challenges for small-business owners. We have endured constantly-changing regulations, extreme cash flow shortages, and general economic uncertainty and anxiety. Just when we thought 2022 was the year to recover, 2022 brought challenges of its own: inflation loomed over, fears of recession started to creep in, along with rising interest rates, staffing shortages, among many others.

However, entrepreneurs and small businesses of all kinds remain resilient and optimistic about 2023. In fact, 66% of small-business owners expect their revenue to increase in the next 12 months, and 52% intend to expand their business operations.

As we enter 2023, the future seems brighter for small business owners. To succeed this year, small businesses must be flexible enough to adapt to a constantly changing market. So that you can meet the needs of your customers and stay one step ahead of the competition, it’s crucial to be aware of the trends that affect your business’s operations, and there’s no better time to reflect than the beginning of the new year.

In this blog, we collected some advice, insights, and predictions that will shape small businesses in 2023.

Trend 1: Increase of Social Media Spending

In recent years, the leading social media platforms have accumulated billions of users across the globe, making it unsurprising that social media has been the perfect target for marketers. We see this growth continuing in 2023, as more and more small businesses will take advantage of this powerful platform to engage with their customers, reach potential audiences, get their brand known, and, eventually, boost sales. An ad agency, Zenith Media, predicts that social media will increase from 55% to 57% of overall global ad spend in 2023.

While almost all of us know that social media advertising is increasingly vital for business growth, it has also become more competitive. Because of this, we advise small businesses to focus on a multichannel organic approach to build audience and increase brand awareness. Of course, ads can help you bolster organic growth. However, small businesses should still avoid getting into a social media race with competitors when organic approaches like content marketing could have a better and more sustainable return on investment.

Trend 2: Growth of Online Communities

Creating an online community of like-minded individuals can encourage valuable connections to your brand. By sharing quality content about your field of expertise, you’ll establish yourself as a leader in the industry and gain the trust of your audience. Of course, social media is the most used platform for online forums and discussion boards, but there are other ways to create an online community. Consider making webinars, offering online courses, hosting live streams, or creating a blog page or online clubs for users interested in your brand to come together and discuss. 

Another great way to build a community is to make a forum on your site where your customers can chat with one another. Take Loyverse Town, as an example. Here, Loyverse POS loyal customers can access informative blog posts, ask each other questions about how the product is used, and even exchange business best practices and ideas. In a forum like Loyverse Town, site visitors can log into their personal accounts to manage their status or appointments, chat with other members, and access other gated, exclusive content.

Trend 3: Leveraging Your Most Loyal and Devoted Customers

Amid uncertain market conditions, small businesses’ best bet is to turn to their most devoted customers as a source of revenue. By counting on already existing customers who exhibit signs of brand loyalty, marketers will drive sales to keep businesses afloat during economic headwinds. After all, it’s less costly to keep existing customers than to acquire new ones. 

A great and cost-effective strategy to take advantage of your best and most loyal customers is implementing tactful UGC (user-generated content) efforts. You can promote UGC’s through exciting offers, branded hashtags, and contests on your social media or e-commerce websites. 

User-generated content is often less expensive than traditional marketing efforts, and the results can be impressive. In a world bombarded with different marketing tactics, modern consumers crave authenticity, and there’s nothing more authentic than the voice of the customer.” 

Trend 4: Personalizing customer service

Today, people expect businesses to know exactly what they want and manage their specific preferences. Personalized customer service is about adapting services to your client’s wants and needs to maintain a smooth customer journey. Did you know that fully engaged customers are 23% more likely to spend with your business than average customers? This may increase your long-term profit.

Try exploring web analytics tools such as Google Analytics to implement personalized customer service. These tools can help you gather insights about your visitors, including how they got there (i.e., search engine or social media), which products are top sellers, and what’s driving users’ purchase decisions. You can use all the data you gather to tailor their personal experience. 

Another great and cost-effective way to foster a more personalized customer experience is to take advantage of your POS (Point-of-Sales) Customer Loyalty Program. Here you can keep a record of your most loyal customers’ data, purchases, and even their contact information. This way, you can send them text messages or emails for special announcements, promotions, or custom coupons. 

Trend 5: Captivate and Delight Customers.

As brick-and-mortar retailers try to bring back customers, 2023 marketers will make the shopping experience more exciting and engaging. Consumers want to be inspired to purchase.

Aside from visual enhancements to make your store more enticing to passersby, you can also leverage emerging technology to captivate and delight potential customers.

If you have some money to spend, you can also have local celebrities or influencers on your sales floor where they can interact with consumers in real-time and show off the products.

Trend 6: Rise of Women Entrepreneurs

The number of women business owners has rapidly grown over the past decade, and this trend will continue to rise in 2023. The 2022 Women & Minority Business Owner Spotlight reports that 75% of women business owners wish they were more knowledgeable about small business finances. Educational resources available to women entrepreneurs will continue to grow in 2023 and beyond.

With this, 2023 will be pivotal for women business owners. Despite the barriers women face that limit their access to credit, loans, and other vital business capital, there are increasing efforts that ensure every woman has the right financial tools to tackle unexpected challenges and grow their business.

Trend 7: Generative AI Will Change Traditional Business Operations.

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) is the ability of software to produce text, music, images, and other creative work from a brief description. The implications of AI are enormous for many functions throughout a business. Today, generative AI can write marketing material, handle customer support requests, help design products, and more. 

This year, more and more people will immerse themselves in tools such as ChatGPT and AI art generators. Suppose major corporations find themselves investing billions of dollars in generative AI. In that case, small businesses can expect to encounter an ever-growing number of generative AI tools that will revolutionize even their most basic operations.

Trend 8: Data Analytics

Data analytics is storing, organizing, and analyzing data for business purposes. This process informs key decision-makers and allows them to make critical strategic decisions based on data, rather than hunches or intuitions. Implementing great data analytics tools in your small business can help you harness your essential business data and use it to identify new opportunities. This leads to more innovative business moves, more efficient operations, higher profits, and happier customers.

You will be able to manage your store more efficiently with a POS that has a built-in Back Office funtion. The Back Office is an online-based tool that works as a powerful data analytics tool for small businesses. It gives you sales reports to make a complete view of your business performance. 

It provides a wide variety of reports and sales analytics which you can access via a browser on any device. Analyze your sales by different parameters, such as time, stores, employees, payment types and more. Here, you can also manage your inventory and customers, set the features necessary for your specific business needs.

With this tool, you can compare sales by different periods, stores, employees, check the important parameters at one page, such as gross sales, net sales, and gross profit, amounts of refunds made and given discounts. It will also help you determine top-selling items and categories, top-performing employees and stores with the top sales.

Data analytics is important to understand trends and patterns from all the business data that are collected. It helps optimize business performance, forecast future results, understand audiences, and reduce costs.

Trend 9: Small businesses will drive new tech adoption.

If you are still deciding,  we are going to tell you that tech isn’t just  for big businesses. In fact, the opposite might be even more true. When new tech comes out, a big company has to test and test, and by the time they set everything up, they don’t want to change it again because they’ve invested so much already. On the contrary, a small business can implement new business tech almost immediately.

That ability to adapt to developing technology gives small businesses a head start, leading them to drive mass adoption of technologies such as AR, VR, and machine learning in 2023.

Trend 10: Automation will become more important.

In 2023, automation will increasingly work with tools that businesses already use to streamline processes and functions. Logistics functions will slowly move toward automated functions, from inventory management to sales and even customer support. Automation helps retailers streamline their operations for maximum efficiency while freeing up employees’ time so they can focus on more creative tasks.

Incorporating automation technologies in your business can increase agility, lower costs, enhance productivity, cut-down delays, minimize errors, and improve overall customer satisfaction. An automation system in your small business allows you to systematically use the right tools to reap the benefits of these technologies and boost your profitability. 

Automation tools like a POS can streamline many tasks to run your retail, restaurant, or cafe business. A POS can effectively manage your sales, costs, items, inventory, and employee and cash flow management. And you don’t even have to be physically present in your store 24/7 since a POS is cloud-based. 

These are just a few of the many ways business is changing in 2023. Of course, technological innovation will continue to rise and the economic climate is constantly fluctuating, change and surprises are constant. But you can be prepared for those changes and establish your business for success, even in the most trying times. By keeping an eye on trends like those we mentioned above, you can gain a competitive advantage.

Conclusion

These are just a few of the many ways business is changing in 2023. Of course, technological innovation will continue to rise and the economic climate is constantly fluctuating, change and surprises are constant. But you can be prepared for those changes and establish your business for success, even in the most trying times. By keeping an eye on trends like those we mentioned above, you can gain a competitive advantage.