Small business sales rose 2.3% in October, best since July 2025

Small business sales were up 2.3% in October compared with a year earlier, the strongest yearly gain since July 2025. The Fiserv Small Business Index, published Nov. 3, 2026, also shows sales rose 0.3% from September. The report points to a decent start to the holiday season, though not every type of store shared in it.

What the numbers show

The Index stood at 146, a score measured against 2019. Two things helped sales. Average spending per purchase rose 3.5% from a year earlier. Foot traffic, meaning the number of customer purchases, fell 1.2%.

That is the 12th straight yearly decline in traffic. But it is the smallest drop since February 2026, and traffic rose 0.5% from September. Fiserv's chief data officer, Prasanna Dhore, said the monthly gains came from more purchases, not bigger ones.

Where sales rose and fell

Gas stations stood out. Sales jumped 23.2% from a year earlier, the fastest pace of 2026, driven by a 22.3% rise in the average purchase. Grocery sales were flat. Grocery purchases grew 1.0%, but the average purchase fell 1.1%.

Retail overall rose 1.9%. Beyond gas stations, the biggest lifts came from sporting goods, hobby, music and bookstores (up 4.3%) and car and parts dealers (up 3.0%). Furniture, home furnishings, electronics and appliances fell 2.5%.

• Essentials grew 2.7%, ahead of discretionary spending at 2.0%.
• Professional services rose 4.6%, led by tax preparation at 18.6%.
• Services grew 2.3% and goods grew 2.2%.

Restaurants and bars

Food services and drinking places slipped 0.5% from a year earlier but rose 0.2% from September. Purchases fell 2.7%, an improvement on September's 3.9% drop, while the average ticket rose 2.2%.

Limited-service restaurants were down 2.2% as purchases fell 4.0%. Full-service restaurants edged up 0.5%. Drinking places did best, up 3.7%.

What to watch next

Dhore said the next signal is whether this momentum holds as holiday shopping speeds up. For owners, the mix matters. Customers are spending more per purchase in many places, but fewer are walking in, so each visit counts for more.

The Index comes from Fiserv, a payments technology company. It uses point-of-sale data from card, cash and check transactions, in stores and online, at about 2 million U.S. small businesses. That includes hundreds of thousands that use Fiserv's Clover system. It measures actual sales, not surveys or opinions. The report covers October only, and it does not say how November or December will go.