As small businesses raise prices, some customers push back

NEW YORK (AP) — Inflation isn’t only costing small businesses money. It’s costing them customers as well.

At the Bushwick Grind Cafe in Brooklyn, New York, Kymme Williams-Davis has raised prices and switched to different types of goods to keep up with the rising costs of milk, coffee, paper goods and plastic, as well as shortages of items such as paper cups and plastic lids. She hasn’t experienced anything like this since opening in 2015.

Williams-Davis says she has lost nearly half of her regular customers. Some have traded down and are buying coffee for $1 at the McDonald’s or bodega on either side of the café instead of paying the $3 she charges.

“If (customers) can get it for a dollar for not that notable of a difference, they’re going next door.”

One customer who had been coming in for years stopped in to tell Williams-Davis he bought himself a coffeemaker.

“He said I’m going to start making coffee at home, I need to budget, so I won’t be coming in here every day,” she said. “I feel like I’ve been on a goodbye campaign.”

Inflation has been rising at nearly the fastest pace in 40 years, driven up by strong consumer spending and higher costs for food, rent, medical care, and other necessities.

On Tuesday, the government is expected to report that price increases slowed in August compared with a year ago, largely because of a steady drop in the cost of gas. Prices for other items, particularly food, are likely to keep rising quickly. Overall, economists forecast consumer prices rose 8.1% in August, compared with a year ago, down from 8.5% in July, according to data provider FactSet.

For much of the pandemic, small business customers were largely tolerant of price increases and kept on spending. But now owners say...