Bookstores Most Recession-Proof Small Businesses

Bookstores, interior design firms and public relations agencies are among the most recession-proof small businesses, according to a Forbes Advisor assessment of 60 different types of small companies.

The analysis can give investors insight into the kinds of businesses that are resilient in downturns, as well as be informative for would-be entrepreneurs.

Rounding out the top five recession-proof firms are staffing agencies and marketing consulting firms.

Over the past 15 years, the most consistently strong-performing businesses have included food trucks, PR agencies and marketing consulting services.

Restaurants, furniture stores, women’s clothing boutiques, taxis and ride shares, and vacation rentals are the five worst-performing businesses in downturns. Breweries, even though they have grown 500% as a category in the past 20 years, are in the bottom 50% of recession-proof businesses.

Other businesses that get hard-hit in a recession or economic downturn: florists, bakeries, photography studios, and jewelry making.

Forbes Advisor’s analysis is based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and Google search data, scoring each industry on the growth in the number of businesses during the Great Recession and the latter part of the pandemic; growth in wages in those timeframes; and estimated startup costs.

Joy of Reading

During the pandemic, 300 new bookstores were opened in the U.S. — despite the proliferation of e-books and Kindle. The New York Times called this “a surprising and welcome revival after an early pandemic slump” and attributed it to the tremendous satisfaction a book can bring to a reader for a relatively low price.

Books “yield an impressive bang for their buck in terms of entertainment,” the NYT said.

For many Americans, the Great Recession and even COVID-19 opened up doors that otherwise would have remained closed to them.

Austin, Texas, entrepreneur Kendra Scott, now worth $580 million, is one of them. Scott launched a jewelry-making business in her spare bedroom in 2002 with just $500. She persevered, only opening her first store in 2010.

Today, the Kendra Scott brand runs 115 shops valued at more than $1 billion, according to Forbes.

The Great Recession “was the greatest gift for me,” Scott told an interviewer in 2015. “If that had been status quo and there wasn’t a big shakeup, the business wouldn’t be where it is now. It's those struggles that can be really, really scary that you can find opportunity in.”

Bloomberg on Successful Start-Ups

As Michael Bloomberg, CEO of Bloomberg and three-term mayor of New York, advises, “If you’re going to succeed, you need a vision — one that’s affordable, practical and fulfills a customer need.

“Then, go for it,” Bloomberg continues. “Don’t worry too much about the details. Don’t second-guess your creativity. Avoid overanalyzing the new project’s potential. Most importantly, don’t strategize about the long-term too much.”