North Raleigh Today

Inflation isn’t just making consumers more conscious of how they spend their money, it’s also causing owners of small businesses to rethink their business models.

That might mean charging more for products, as they seek to cover higher product and shipping costs, but it also means not carrying certain things anymore. So expect your options at various shops and cafes to change.

"Just the furniture for this was $5,000, not including the price of the product,” Jessica Throneburg, owner of the Little Details boutique in Garner, told ABC 11 News, regarding one of the product lines she won’t sell anymore. “It’s now no longer valuable to us if you can't make any money off of it.” 

Consumer prices in the U.S. have risen 8.3% in 2022 through August, with the South faring worse at 8.9%.

Throneburg said she's been paying 25% to 30% more for inventory than she used to. Besides the base price of everything being higher, she wants to pay her staff a living wage, and she has had to pay higher shipping costs to get products delivered.

"It's hard when you're looking at it. It's not apples to apples,” she told ABC 11 News. “We always say when you're shopping local, you're getting an experience, and we hope people see value in what we're providing them in the store." 

Shannon Healy, owner of a bar called Alley Twenty Six in Durham, echoed the sentiments. 

"This is what it is. If things cost too much, you try and get other things, and if you can't move things around, they have to go up in price,” he said, according to ABC 11 News.

For those in the food service industry, what the eatery offers no longer depends just on what the chef or owner wants to prepare.

“Your menu has to be dictated in ways where it's not like, ‘Oh, what do you want to serve?' It's, 'What do you want to serve at a price point that your clientele actually wants to pay for,’” Healy told ABC 11 News.