Is Retail Dead for Small Business Owners?

Every time I open my socials, another brand is announcing they’re closing up shop. And I’m not talking about someone giving up on a side hustle after three months. I mean well-established, well-loved brands. Ones people genuinely cared about. So what’s going on? Is retail dead for small business owners or is there something deeper going on beneath the surface?

Let’s be clear: retail is absolutely brutal right now. Costs keep rising and customers are often waiting until sale season starts before buying from their favourite brands. It’s one of the biggest headaches entrepreneurs are dealing with in retail land. But although it’s the most visible challenge, it’s not the whole story. We’re not just dealing with a bad economy or flaky customers. The bigger issue is the way we — as retailers, brand owners and entrepreneurs — have built our strategies in the past years.The bill for that structure is now being presented, and in this economic climate, more and more businesses are no longer able to pay the price.

I’ve run multiple webshops over the years, and I’ve seen how each season the sales started earlier. Summer collections launched in winter. Winter dropped in summer. Not because we wanted to, but because we were afraid that if we waited too long, we’d miss out on sales. So each season, we moved up — just trying to keep up with the rat race.

Then Black Friday became a thing in the Netherlands. Then came pre-Black Friday sales. Halloween sales. Valentine sales. Free shipping weekends. Newsletter discounts. It turned into complete mayhem.

And most entrepreneurs didn’t even realise they were training customers to simply wait for a discount — by always offering one.The false belief that the only way to stay visible was to keep giving weaseled its way in — and quietly became the go-to strategy for a lot of business owners.

Now of course, even if this isn’t your go-to strategy, a lot of customers still do wait for sales. But that doesn’t mean these customers are worth any less, or that it’s wrong.

On the one hand, as an entrepreneur, I’m very aware of how important it is to have customers that buy full price. On the other hand, I’m also a parent. I have no idea what size my kids will wear next season, so I always buy their outfits in season.If a brand starts discounting at the beginning of the season rather than at the end, I’ll be the first one in line.

Because costs didn’t just rise for me as a business owner — they went up for me as a parent and customer too. This is not me having loyalty issues. It’s me keeping my financial reality in check.

So, is retail dead?

Which brings me back to the retail bubble we, as entrepreneurs, created ourselves.We kept giving discounts, thinking the customer would give back once we’d earned their loyalty.

The no. 1 biggest mistake: customers don’t owe us anything, ever.Love for the brand isn’t the same as obligation. It’s not their job to keep our business up and running — especially if it only works when they pay full price.And it shouldn’t either. Because when they don’t… our business is very, very screwed.

So, is retail dead for small buisiness owners?

No, it’s not. But the system we built around it is now showing us it was never built to last. It relies too heavily on full-price sales, created habits we never meant to create, and shaped customer expectations we now feel stuck in.

Of course, we’ll always have to deal with external factors — but it’s our job to keep the business going despite them.

So it’s time to go back to the drawing board and rebuild the way we run our businesses.We have to recognise it’s not just about the customer or the economy — we’re stuck in a trap we built ourselves, over the years.

On the bright side: since we’re the ones who built it, we can also rebuild it.