The Fiserv Small Business Index, published by Fiserv, Inc. (NYSE: FI), reported a two-point decline to 148 in June 2025, signaling a slowdown in U.S. consumer activity that impacted small business sales. While year-over-year sales remained strong (+4.4%), month-over-month sales decreased by 1.4%, with foot traffic experiencing a similar trend, up 2.2% year over year but down 2.0% month over month. Average ticket sizes, however, showed growth, rising 2.1% compared to 2024 and 0.6% month over month, particularly in non-discretionary categories.
Prasanna Dhore, Chief Data Officer at Fiserv, commented, “Small business sales continue to be impacted by economic uncertainty, causing many consumers to spend with more caution. Discretionary spending declined again in June, and consumers diverted more dollars to the essentials.”
The trend of services outperforming goods continued in June 2025. Sales of Services grew 5.2% year over year, compared to 2.3% for Goods. Service-based businesses that saw significant year-over-year growth included Food Manufacturing (+11.7%) and Professional Services (+9.0%). Month-over-month, Services declined 1.2%, less than the 2.0% decline for Goods. Categories such as Administration and Support Services, Education, Hospitals, and Rental and Leasing Services experienced month-over-month growth.
Small business restaurants saw sales grow slightly by 0.4% year over year but faced sharper declines of 2.6% month over month. These monthly sales declines were primarily due to a 2.5% drop in foot traffic compared to May, which had already seen a 5.6% decline from April. Average ticket sizes in this sector remained relatively flat, decreasing by 0.1% month over month.
In the retail sector, sales decreased 1.7% month over month in June 2025, though they grew 1.7% year over year. Transactions followed a similar pattern, with a 1.0% month-over-month decrease and a 1.9% year-over-year increase. The only retail subsector to report month-over-month gains was Food & Beverage Retail (+0.9%). Year-over-year, most retail subsectors showed growth, including Furniture, Electronics and Appliances (+4.5%), Food & Beverage Retail (+4.1%), and Sporting Goods (+3.4%).
Regionally, small business sales saw month-over-month growth in 10 of 50 U.S. states. The most significant month-over-month sales growth occurred in smaller states, led by Alabama (+3.5%), North Dakota (+5.8%), and Alaska (+6.1%). Larger states, including California (-2.3%), New York (-4.2%), and Texas (-1.2%), experienced month-over-month sales declines. Among major metropolitan areas, San Francisco (+8.5%) and Atlanta (+13.6%) were the top-performing large cities for year-over-year small business sales growth, while Boston (+1.2%) was the only large metro area to show month-over-month sales growth.
The Fiserv Small Business Index is published monthly and tracks consumer spending activity within the U.S. small business ecosystem. Unlike surveys or sentiment data, the Index is derived from aggregated point-of-sale transaction data, encompassing card, cash, and check transactions both in-store and online from approximately 2 million U.S. small businesses, including those utilizing the Clover point-of-sale platform. Benchmarked to 2019, the Index measures consumer spending and customer traffic, providing a consistent measure of small business performance across 16 sectors and 34 sub-sectors, categorized by the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS).
Fiserv, Inc. (NYSE: FI) is a Fortune 500 company and a global provider of payments and financial services technology. The company offers solutions in areas such as account processing, digital banking, card issuer processing, network services, payments, e-commerce, merchant acquiring, and its Clover point-of-sale and business management platform. Fiserv is a member of the S&P 500® Index and has been recognized as one of TIME Magazine’s Most Influential Companies™ and Fortune® World’s Most Admired Companies™.
