For Phillip Rollins, owner of record and comic store OffBeat in Jackson, Mississippi, January is going to be a slow month.
“You’re either making a profit or you’re kind of in a dead zone,” Rollins said. “That’s why January and summer tend to be my least favorite months, because they’re so slow.”
Rollins, who recently moved to a new store in downtown Jackson, had a strong holiday retail season.
“I liked a lot of big ticket items,” he said. “Recently I bought a collection in which he had two rare copies of Taylor Swift 45. [a vinyl record played at a speed of 45 revolutions per minute]And I actually sold one of them, thinking I would never get one. ”
But as the summer ended, he had to deal with a problem that had been on his mind since last year: inflation. Rollins is not alone. Nearly one-third of his small businesses said they were worried about inflation in December, according to the Small Business Optimism Index.
“Inflation is going up, so I’m kind of sick of it,” Rollins said. “For example, last year he was $25, Rollin’ his Hill record, and now it’s $30, maybe $35. That extra $5 is enough for people to say, ‘He’s got one record.’ It makes the difference between buying one or buying two.”
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