Consumer Behavior

SMB sales grew in April despite consumers trimming discretionary spend

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May 23, 2025

Small business sales in April grew above March despite consumers continuing to trim discretionary spending, according to the Fiserv Small Business Index for April.

"Even as consumer spending shows resiliency, market uncertainties appear to be driving budget-conscious consumers to reprioritize where they spend their money," Prasanna Dhore, chief data officer, Fiserv, said in a press release on the growth data. "Small businesses providing the essentials, including healthcare and grocery, saw strong gains in the month; conversely, discretionary spending, including parts of travel and retail saw growth slow."

On a year-over-year basis, small business sales (+3.2%) and total transactions (+6.9%) continued to show growth.

Compared to April 2024, sales of services (+3.6%) continued to outperform goods (+2.2%), which has been the case for each month of 2025.

The Fiserv Small Business Index is derived from point-of-sale transaction data, including card, cash and check transactions in-store and online across approximately 2 million U.S. small businesses, including hundreds of thousands leveraging the Clover point-of-sale and business management platform.