Big dreams (and digital tools) gave U.S. small businesses an edge in 2024
December 24, 2024 | By Sophie Hares
This year, more than 5 million Americans took a leap of faith by launching their own business, risking money, reputation and sleep to turn their dream of becoming their own boss into reality.
Brave as these souls may be, they are not jumping into entrepreneurship blindly. Instead, many are turning to digital tools to gain valuable insights needed for their businesses to grow and evolve.
As people increasingly eschew cash and tap their phones to pay, data insights from digital payments can help small businesses identify their most popular products, update inventories and fine-tune their social media marketing. So far, their strategy is working. Profits increased between 2022 and 2023 for 89% of businesses that used technology platforms, versus 72% of businesses that used little to no tech, according to a 2024 U.S. Chamber of Commerce report.
Read how small businesses, from craft breweries to independent bookshops, are using digital and data insights to get a much-needed edge.
Independent thinking drives Blacksburg businesses
In the Appalachian college town of Blacksburg, Virginia, many independent retailers are relying on data insights to help them devise creative ways to compete against mammoth box stores and online shopping giants.
For instance, rather than strain to match the purchasing power of big-name supermarkets, the owners of Oasis World Market have fine-tuned their offerings to build local demand for specialized products, including Japanese sake and German stollen. Many groceries operate on wafer-thin margins, so the store relies on its point-of-sale system to deliver real-time transaction and inventory data that shows what’s selling fast and what they need to restock or drop.
Similarly, at Blacksburg Books, constant social media marketing helps drive customers through the door to browse, while sales data helps the shop prepare for the holiday season by highlighting previous best-selling categories.
How a Mexican restaurant turned up the heat
When Emmanuell Maldonado’s parents became ill, he put his bar exams on ice to help run their Mariscos Playa Hermosa restaurant in Phoenix, popular for its shrimp aguachile and spicy micheladas.
He quickly realized he had found his passion and decided to stay on after his parents recovered. He even stuck with it through the bumpy pandemic period, developing his social media presence and a website to sell takeout.
Since then, brighter days have arrived. Last year, the family opened a new restaurant called Cielo Rojo. Maldonado has continued expanding his digital horizon by using Mastercard’s Digital Doors tool kit, which provides resources and tools to help small businesses set up online. Plus, he regularly sends money back to their family in Mexico using the Paysend instant card-to-card transfer platform.
But best of all, soccer-loving Maldonado and his father welcomed Mexican footballer Héctor Herrera and others to film a video at their restaurant highlighting small businesses as part of Mastercard’s sponsorship of the CONMEBOL Copa América football tournament, and where, Maldonado joked, Herrera was made an honorary busboy for life.
Tapping into a hometown business
When Dan Morano and his wife moved back to Great Falls, Montana, in 2021, he discovered with a shock that there were few craft beer options in town. He quickly set about starting a brewery and taproom alongside his brother and brother-in-law.
Besides his passion for craft beer, Morano had worked on the agricultural side of the brewing industry and understood how it operated. But the trio found themselves hamstrung by Montana’s strict licensing rules.
Simplifying their plan, a year later they opened Annie’s Tap House, which mainly sells beers from other breweries, and funded it through a mix of seller financing, a line of bank credit and their own savings.
Now the high-tech systems they use to measure the beers they pull helps cut waste. And digital payments, including a contactless-enabled point-of-sale system, crunches sales data so they can better target their core market: artisanal beer lovers like Morano.
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