By Andrew Miller
Small business sales are up, but fewer customers are buying.
According to the Fiserv Small Business Index, sales rose 1.1% year over year, driven by higher average tickets (how much customers spent on each transaction). In addition, April 2026 marks the fifth consecutive month that average tickets increased 2%. It’s also the largest YoY increase since 2022.
These numbers look good on the surface, but they don’t paint the bigger picture.
Demand isn’t increasing, the price of goods and services is. As a result, customers are changing the way they spend. Foot traffic is down. They’re visiting stores less often, prioritizing value and pulling back on anything nonessential.
You can see this in the restaurant data. Limited-service restaurants like fast food and takeout spots took the hardest hit. Sales are down 4.8%, while foot traffic fell 5.1%. Eating out less is often the first change people make when cutting back.
Gas stations were the outlier last month. Sales jumped 19% YoY, although that’s almost entirely due to rising fuel costs amid conflict in the Persian Gulf. Increasing fuel costs also caused an uptick in transportation and warehousing tickets.
Among the worst performing industries are rental and leasing services, general merchandise retailers, and warehouse and storage.
The pattern is consistent: customers are still spending. But more carefully and less often.
P.S. Revenue up, customers down. That’s not growth, it’s inflation. When prices stop rising, the gap shows. Let’s talk about your capital position before it does.