Small Business

The Retailers Association of Massachusetts is preparing for a majority of its members to either retire or sell their small businesses in the next decade, and the trade group's president said Wednesday that local franchise operations are going to be "key" to the future success of the small business sector.

Amid uncertainty about a future recession, a pause in interest rate hikes, and a continuing tight labor market, Central Massachusetts business leaders turned pessimistic in June.

Leominster-based public relations firm empHowered PR is opening its second location at the Worcester Idea Lab on Franklin Street, its first move beyond its North Central Massachusetts headquarters.

Vintage Rebel Curiosity Shop in Leicester refers to itself as “We’re one of those ‘don't know you need it until you see it’ kind of stores.”

At the end of 2022, WBJ readers were more pessimistic about the future of the Central Massachusetts economy than they had been at any point in the previous 10 years. The first five months of this year only made them more pessimistic.

Clark University has appointed Robert Spellane, former state representative and community health center leader, as interim regional director of its Small Business Development Center.

The payrolls of Asian-owned businesses in Massachusetts grew from $1.2 billion to nearly $4 billion over the 18-year period ending in 2020, according to a new report that collates information from national and local sources.

Waltham-based utility National Grid will donate $800,000 to eight chambers of commerce in Massachusetts, including $100,000 to the North Central Massachusetts Chamber of Commerce in Fitchburg.

Shop owner Sheri Putnam, together with her husband Bob Putnam and Design Coordinator Susan Krysinski, maintain an ever-rotating stock of farmhouse-styled merchandise that all but bursts off the shelves.

When the first recreational cannabis dispensaries in Massachusetts opened in November 2018, their parking lots assumed a festive air as people lined up, sometimes for hours, to get the newly legal product. Nearly five years later, legal cannabis has become an unremarkable part of the state economy.