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Worldwide, consumers have bought into e-commerce. According to Statista, 2.14 billion people patronized a business online in 2021, with sales totaling a whopping $4.9 trillion USD, and by 2025, those numbers are projected to escalate to over $7.4 trillion.

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In a joint announcement, Vice President Kamala Harris and SBA administrator Isabel Guzman signaled key changes to the loan program, initialized in during the Obama administration to help improve access to SBA programs, among community lending partners including Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs), Community Development Companies (CDCs), and micro-lenders.

Designed to meet the credit, management, and technical assistance needs of small businesses in underserved markets, the SBA’s Community Advantage pilot loan program was originally set to expire in September 2022. After today’s announcement, the program’s new sunset date is September 30, 2024.

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The president announced Friday that 431,000 jobs were added in March and unemployment numbers are just above a 50-year low. While that is good news for job seekers, many businesses are struggling to keep their doors open, not because of COVID-19 but because of a lack of staff.

Many business owners have no choice but to use temporary hours, many times having to step in themselves to go from boss to worker, like Manali Patel, who wears many hats throughout the day.

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Throughout the past two years, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused tax deadlines to shift and brought about federal relief programs — all affecting how small businesses filed income taxes. Although the 2022 tax season is shaping up to be closer to “business as usual,” there are some considerations of which small business owners need to be aware.

CO— dedicated one of its recent “Start. Run. Grow.” events to help small businesses navigate the 2022 tax season. Accounting experts spoke with CO— Editor-in-Chief Jeanette Mulvey about what businesses need to know this year and how they can make filing and record-keeping easier year-round.

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The best small-business apps can help you run your company, startup or side hustle more efficiently, saving you time and money. Here are NerdWallet’s top picks for accounting, point-of-sale, payroll and invoicing.

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We have all experienced the decline in customer service over the past two years. A workforce shortage has resulted in shortened hours of operation, extended on hold wait times and the frustrating experience of a customer service representative unable to answer your questions. Businesses have put service on the back burner. But this is truly an opportunity for your business to stand out.

Service is the art of providing your customers with care and kindness. You don’t need a full staff to provide exceptional one-on-one customer care. Think quality over quantity.

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In the digital age, there are numerous effective options for businesses to communicate with customers and clients, and one increasingly popular method adopted by many companies is SMS text. For businesses, texting is a highly direct form of communication that easily gets your message in front of the right audience. Of course, there is bound to be a learning curve whenever businesses tread into new territory with customer communications.

Below, 15 Forbes Communication Council members shared their best advice for companies using SMS texting to market to or communicate with their customers.

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Most people still think of the metaverse as Mark Zuckerberg’s cartoonish characters. Once Facebook took the sobriquet Meta, the move ignited a land rush into virtual reality. This Web3 space is becoming diverse in its offering, ranging from video gamers to sellers of NFTs, builders of buildings, purchasers of property and practical applications that are hard to conduct in the real world.

In an interview with VRdirect’s cofounder and managing director, Rolf Illenberger, he shared his vision of a more practical, business-focused metaverse. His group builds solutions. He sees the metaverse beyond gaming and into marketing, human resources, manufacturing, training, safety planning and the offering of 360-degree virtual showrooms. Basically, VRDirect helps Fortune 500 do business in the metaverse.

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Isabella Casillas Guzman, head of the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) has announced the 2022 edition of the National Small Business Week (NSBW) will run from May 1–7 this year. This year’s NSBW will run under the theme ‘Building a Better America Through Entrepreneurship’ and solicit support for America’s 32.5 million small businesses.

This year’s celebrations will include a four-day virtual summit in partnership with SCORE to acknowledge small businesses from across the country for their resilience, ingenuity, and creativity. In addition, events will be organized to recognize SBA partners for their support of entrepreneurial development, disaster recovery, government contracting, financial development, and others.

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