Small Business

Samantha and Christie met on a random European dance floor while crushing a sea of plastic waste underfoot. The pair now run a small business in Melbourne that manufactures reusable cups for festivals and events.

You may be eating Australian-grown food that has been processed overseas and then shipped back again. Local food manufacturers worry they will struggle to compete with imports among price-conscious consumers. 

At its height, Booktopia posted a package every 3.9 seconds to millions of Australians. Now, some independent bookshops hope its collapse will lead to a boost in business.

Thirty redundancies were announced at the Victorian brewery on Wednesday with 50 staff remaining employed to continue trading while the administrators restructure the company.

The owners of a popular drinks company in North East Victoria have described the "excruciatingly difficult" decision to put their business into voluntary administration.

When athletes walk through the Paris Olympic Village or into the stadium in the coming weeks, high-tech and sustainable lights made in Australia will illuminate their way.

As demand for online content soars, newsagencies in regional towns are struggling to keep afloat. For Frank and Moya Livingstone it's an end of an era as they prepare to close their doors for the last time.

Social interactions and community connection are often some of the first things people living with dementia lose. 

The message is clear: the honeymoon period is now over for businesses that were extended during the COVID-19 pandemic, as the ATO works to recoup more than $50 billion in debt.

The ATO has issued tens of thousands of director penalty notices that make people personally liable for debts, and is also more commonly using garnishee notices, which allow it to take money directly from a person's bank account or employer. That's sending more businesses under.

Substantial discounts and sales saw Australians spending more on clothing and footwear in May. Although it may be good news for retailers, what does the increase in consumer spending mean for inflation and interest rates?

Letisha Frenken has struggled for years to retain chefs in her central Queensland cafe. She says she cannot compete with the higher wages offered in the mines.

It was an innocent-enough question to put to the boss of Australia's fastest-growing beauty brand: How do you sit with the ethics of duping? The clip went viral, but it shows there are shades of grey at the heart of makeup dupes.

Bianca Purdie moved straight into nine-to-five work after school but soon burnt out. Now the owner of her own business, like four in five Gen Z-ers, she says she would rather work for herself.

Australian cosmetics giant MCoBeauty has attracted global attention for its strikingly similar beauty dupes, but the company has kept the details of its product development process out of the spotlight — until now.

Small beauty entrepreneurs say they are struggling to stop copies of their cosmetics being released because they don't have the legal budgets to fight big companies that are self-confessed dupers.

Pole dancing has a raunchy reputation, but fitness instructor Stacey Windsor says its physical and mental health benefits can transform lives — and she's starting with her small home town. 

Social enterprises are for-profit businesses that tackle a social problem at the same time as doing their work. They're booming in growth and a new scheme aims to add rigour — so the good work keeps getting done.

The craft beer scene's biggest festival of the year became an inadvertent staging point for the many intersecting issues facing the industry. Brewers tried to put on a brave face but admitted "vibes were down."

The rising cost of living is taking a toll on Canberra small businesses, as increasing operational costs combined with customers spending less leaves many in a precarious position.

Meet the brewers who journeyed into old town archives and ship manifests, and spent hours at the local museum, to re-create what would have been served to patrons in this South Australian pub in the 1800s.

A community-supported agriculture enterprise is supplying chemical-free produce grown on Whyalla's arid salt pans and offering alternatives to the big supermarkets.

While supermarket shelves were stripped bare of egg cartons, the storage room at Wes Humpage's farm was reaching capacity. Until today.   

A Melbourne couple had just moved to the small border town of Apsley to take over the town's pub when a car crashed through their bar. After extensive repairs, the inn reopened for the long weekend.

If you're among the majority of Australians with Facebook or Instagram accounts, your social activity on those platforms might be training Meta's artificial intelligence (AI) tools — and if you live in Australia, you can't say no.