I've owned a small, family-operated retail and installation business for over 20 years, and there's something about the credit card dispute process that I find incredibly troubling.

A customer can purchase thousands of dollars in materials, receive the products and services, and then initiate a chargeback. The merchant is suddenly put in a position of having to prove they deserve to keep money they already earned.

Meanwhile, the business has paid suppliers, employees, installers, overhead, and operating expenses. Those costs don't magically disappear when a cardholder disputes a transaction.

What frustrates me most is the apparent imbalance in the system. Credit card companies like American Express promote cardholder protection, but where is the equivalent protection for the businesses accepting their cards?

I'm not suggesting that legitimate consumer disputes shouldn't be protected. Of course they should.

But what happens when a merchant has contracts, invoices, payment records, documentation, and evidence that the transaction was legitimate, yet still loses the dispute?

Who holds the card companies accountable for how these decisions are made?

For a large corporation, a chargeback might be a rounding error. For a small business, it can mean thousands of dollars lost, legal expenses, and months of unnecessary stress.

At what point does protecting the consumer become unfairly shifting the financial risk onto the small business?

I'd genuinely like to hear from other business owners who have experienced this, particularly with American Express. Were you able to challenge the decision successfully, or were you simply left absorbing the loss?

I have found his business online! Garro Law Group in kananta/Ottawa Ontario

I’m posting this because I honestly don’t know what else to do.

This past Sunday, a client urgently asked me to put other jobs on pause to repair his pool cracks. My team and I spent 12 hours working, only to discover the job involved foundation repairs.

We invested approximately $3,000 in materials, plus labour, and sacrificed our only day off to get the work done. I even missed valuable time with my kids to help this client.

He asked for one week to pay, and I trusted his word. Now, he’s completely disappeared. No answers to calls or messages.

We work hard to support our families and run an honest business. All we ask is to be paid for the work we do.

It’s disappointing to give someone your time, effort, and trust, only to be left chasing payment for work already completed.

If anyone has advice on how to handle this situation, I’d appreciate it. And if the client sees this, please reach out so we can resolve this professionally.

Earlier this summer my business was struggling and I was dipping into my savings to pay for my mortgage, car, and kids pre-school. I was just sitting on my hands waiting for the phone to ring and email inquiries to come through. I was often thinking "maybe I should just call it quits, go back into the corporate world, collect a steady predictable paycheck and not have to worry about where, when, or how much my next payday is"

But I dug deep and desperately reached out to my network, worked on my marketing, and updated my website SEO and long story short I have MORE work than I can handle and multiple leads are coming through daily.

It's exciting and thrilling but also scary because it's easy to see over the ledge. It's easy to see the day I cannot pay my mortgage and bills. It's scary to see my bank account decrease each month with no money coming in.

People see the glamour of being my own boss but fail to realize the risks we have to endure.

Many business owners I know who are getting their clients from social media, either copy their competitors or if you look at their competitors page and theirs you don't see any difference. I feel that is the reason why clients haggle on price. What do you feel?

I'm looking hard at buying into a healthy-food franchise; my local community has seen a big rise in gyms, young families, and HYROX. (Toastique + Crisp and Green is top of my list, also weighing a couple of juice concepts) and trying to get past the FDD before I commit

For anyone who already owns one what actually caught you off guard in year one, good or bad? Specifically curious about:

- how real the corporate support turned out to be

- labor and hiring for a small cafe team

- how much your location determined the outcome

- anything you wish you'd asked before signing

Not looking for "it's great" or "it's a scam," just the in-the-weeds stuff. Trying to make a decision before I sign FDDs.

Hello everyone!

I'm planning to start a small business on the side to make some extra money by providing services in developing automation software to perform repeated tasks such as file manipulation, cleaning up data and generating reports.

The biggest problem is how to get my first clients. I don't want to use sites like Fiverr or Upwork because of the competition, and I want to keep this a part-time gig.

If you've already created a small business like mine, how did you find your first clients? What methods proved to be especially effective when you had no clients at all?

Hi everyone,

I'm planning to start a small business in Morocco, but I need to figure out how to finance the initial stage before I can begin selling.

I'm comparing different possibilities, such as saving gradually, crowdfunding, small business grants, and support from individuals who want to help new entrepreneurs get started.

For those who started a business with very little capital, what actually worked for you?

Are there international funding opportunities that someone based in Morocco could realistically apply for? I'd especially appreciate suggestions that don't require giving away equity or paying large upfront fees.

I'm looking for realistic experiences rather than get-rich-quick advice.

Thanks for sharing your knowledge.

Hey everyone,

I'm a small business owner from India, and I'm trying to build my own footwear brand called Flipoza. I sell slippers, slides, and clogs on Amazon and Flipkart.

I'm doing almost everything myself — product sourcing, listings, product photos, pricing, and marketing. I genuinely try to offer good-quality products at a reasonable price, and I'm putting a lot of time and effort into this business.

But honestly, I'm struggling.

Despite all the work, I'm not getting the number of orders I expected. I even hired a company to help me grow my sales, hoping they could bring some results, but they couldn't generate even a single order.

As a small seller, spending money without getting results is really frustrating. I don't have a huge budget, so every expense matters.

I'm not here to complain or promote my brand. I genuinely want to understand what I'm doing wrong.

For those who have experience selling physical products online, especially on Amazon, Flipkart, or other marketplaces:

- Is the main problem usually product demand, pricing, listing quality, or visibility?

- How can a new brand compete with established brands when it has very few reviews?

- If you were starting a footwear brand from scratch today, what would you focus on first?

- How would you figure out whether a product is worth continuing with before spending more money on ads or agencies?

I'd really appreciate honest advice, even if it's something I might not want to hear.

I'm willing to learn and improve. I just want to figure out the right direction instead of wasting more money on things that don't work.

Thank you to anyone who takes the time to help.

Before starting a business, I had so many assumptions about how things worked.
But actually running one has challenged some of those beliefs.
I’ve realised that being good at what you do and being good at getting people to pay for it are two completely different skills.
And sometimes the hardest lessons aren’t about money. They’re about people, expectations and how differently things work in practice.
I’m curious.
What’s one thing you were absolutely convinced about before starting your business that experience proved wrong?

24 F, mom of 2, with a little bit of selling experience on my own. I’ve bought liquidation pallets and lien storage units and sell the items out of it for a few years now. I want to move forward with this and potentially make it a full time income, instead of here and there. How do you move forward to make it a full time business, what do you sell? Should it be a thrift store front or find a vendor and stick to a general sale plan of exact items. And why the motive? Why start the business besides the money? Providing customers with clearance for the best priced items?

Thanks for coming to my ted talk and hope to see your opinions in the comments. Really no wrong answers.

Looking for advice from anyone who’s dealt with a 50/50 LLC partnership dispute in New York.
Our business is approximately 8 months old, with less than $2,000 in physical assets. We have a few thousand followers on each of our social media platforms.
I’ve personally invested a significant amount of time building the branding, marketing, and social media presence, along with handling much of the tax-related work, filings, and administrative responsibilities to keep the business compliant.
The business has been inactive for approximately two months, with no upcoming bookings, but we’re still incurring expenses such as storage.
I’ve offered to buy out my partner’s 50% interest because I’d prefer to continue the business rather than dissolve it. However, we haven’t been able to agree on a price, and my partner would prefer dissolution.
I’ve contacted a mediation center twice and requested mediation, but haven’t received a clear response from my partner about participating.
We have a basic operating agreement, and I’m trying to find the most cost-effective way to resolve this without spending more on legal fees than the business is worth.
Has anyone dealt with something similar? Would you pursue mediation, consult an attorney, or agree to dissolve?
And if the business is dissolved, what happens to the social media accounts and branding when one partner has done most of the work building them?
I’d really appreciate hearing about your experiences or any practical advice.

I have yet to hit $600 in sales for tax report but I also am so confused if I need to register with the state yet or not - I'm a one person show -

I also just got lucky and found a office that rents out a space for CHEAP and it would help my "art" business thrice.

What do i need so I dont run into issue down the road?

This would be a huge step for my small business.

Any advice would be a huge help!

For small business owners who handle their own social media: how do you avoid wasting time posting the same thing everywhere?

I usually start with one post, but then end up changing it for LinkedIn, shortening it for X, adjusting it for Instagram, changing the image format, and then posting or scheduling each version.

Which is closest to what you do?

A — I post basically the same thing everywhere

B — I manually rewrite each version for every platform

C — I use a scheduler, but still make most of the changes myself

D — I use AI/tools to adapt the post, then review the versions

E — I mostly avoid posting on multiple platforms because it takes too much time

If you use a tool for this, does it actually save much time or does it mostly just handle the scheduling part?

Interested in what other small business owners are doing, especially those without a dedicated marketing person.

I’m working on a “pet project” to help a family member who runs a small house paining business revamp their website.

One thing I’d like to add is a scheduling tool. Right now leaning towards Zoom which provides the phone service. I’m open to alternates. Key is to sync with calendars and be low touch.

As an extension of that, looking into a barebones CRM or system to capture contact info. Don’t need anything more than that really. Any open source systems you are using or would recommend?

Thanks

I’m a product manager at a small company, and I’d like to get some perspective from people with management experience on a situation involving a colleague on our procurement team.

He joined about six months ago after working in supply chain delivery at a large corporation. His current role involves finding suppliers, getting quotes, arranging samples, and coordinating with manufacturers.

I’ve been having some difficulties working with him, mainly around following through on tasks and taking initiative.

For example, I’ll send over product requirements and ask for quotes, boms, or sample updates, but often have to follow up several times to find out what’s happening. Sometimes there’s no clear timeline or explanation of what’s holding things up.

Another issue is how he handles problems with suppliers. When a supplier says something is too expensive or difficult to manufacture, he often just passes that information along. I usually end up being the one asking why, whether there are other options, or what we should try next. I don’t expect him to solve technical problems, but I would expect someone in sourcing to investigate further rather than stop at the supplier’s response.

I’ve tried being more specific about what I need, including the expected deliverables and deadlines, but I haven’t seen much improvement. I still spend quite a bit of time following up on tasks that fall within his responsibilities.

I brought these concerns to our team leader because I wanted to find a way to improve how we work together.

She felt that my feedback was too subjective and suggested that I might not have communicated my requirements clearly enough. She also mentioned that my colleague is sensitive and that I have a strong personality, so he might feel uncomfortable asking me questions or telling me when something goes wrong. But I was actually pretty friendly and patient with him at first. I only started getting more serious after having to follow up on the same issues over and over again.

I’ve shared specific examples from our projects with her, including the original requests, follow-ups, and outcomes. She hasn’t really gone through them, though. I understand she may see things differently, but I wish we could discuss what actually happened rather than focus mainly on our personalities.

For those of you with management experience, how would you approach a situation like this? What steps would you take to understand what’s going wrong and help improve things? I’d really appreciate any advice or experiences you could share from handling similar situations.

Lately social media marketing campaigns not driving much attention, tried UGC campaigns as well. Numbers looks fine but I don’t feel it really bringing customers. My friend (also runs similar business in another city) suggested me to go on IRL advertising specially on campuses which my target audience are young individuals. Anyone tried it before, did it work?

Hey everyone! I have some extra time on my hands and would like to work on a few real-world projects to strengthen my portfolio.

I'm happy to build a website or custom system for a business at no development cost. You'd only need to cover the hosting, domain, and any other tools required to keep the project running, which are generally affordable.

I'd love to work on something practical that a business can actually use. If this is allowed in the thread and you're interested, feel free to share a little about your project!

Bin gespannt wie viele Glückliche zwischen euch gibt

for context, i’m making and programming nfc cards for restaurants and cafes with a custom landing page for them that has their menu, review page, wife details, and any other information the business requires branded specifically to them.

I’m not totally sure how to get meetings with owners. I’ve been cold emailing several businesses and have made sure to make each email custom to them and not seem like a spam email.

Does anyone have any advice on how I can go around doing this? i’m based in the UK

1. For people running Shopify stores: do you use Shopify Collabs, an outside tool, or just search hashtags by hand? What’s worked and what’s been a waste of time?

Hey everyone!

I'm planning to launch my own tutoring company (focused on people applying for Australia med schools) and I have no idea how to start. I currently just advertise myself on facebook (getting a few clients) and through family friends.

My main questions are basically are all website-related:

• Which website builder should I use? (i know in the long-run I will probs hire someone to manage my website - so just need something easy + professional looking to last at least 2 years before I "expand")
• What should the domain name be? should it end in .com or .com.au (i have quite a few people asking from canada and new zealand so I want my website to reach that audience too)
• Where should I buy my domain from?

Any advice is appreciated!

I run a 7 figure Ecom fashion brand. October has been brutal..anyone else? Running flash sales and still seeing the worst numbers than any other month before. Typically our lowest month is February but my god October is going to be worse.

I’m hoping everyone is just saving up for holiday sales..

hey everyone! Ive come to this point where I am sick and tired of business coaches etc who have 2 yrs of business experience and are giving out lectures and courses and what not. Ive always loved guiding my friends etc ive been doing business for the past 14 years. I want to dive into this world of coaching and i want to start by truly honestly giving out free advise do free calls or chats with budding business owners especially at the small and medium scale because thats where ive always been. But somehow its like even if i want to give out free advise or free session i have to market myself and i have to spend money on ads or what not.

how do i genuinely start this journey of coaching or giving advise for free to people who are like minded. also how atleast in the start till i know im actually helping people be "free" without sounding like a scam because thats what scams sound like (lol)