Health and wellness businesses were in high demand in 2024, with their price-to-sales ratios jumping 18% according to data from BizBuySell. Meanwhile, ice cream shops saw melting multiples.
By Brandon Kochkodin, Forbes Staff
In 2024, small business buyers weren’t looking for dessert. Instead, they were looking to sweat. Fitness businesses got more expensive and ice cream shops got cheaper, according to data from BizBuySell, an online marketplace for small businesses and a division of Arlington, Virginia – based CoStar Group ($30 billion market capitalization).
Gyms saw their price-to-revenue multiples jump from 0.72x to 0.85x, an 18% year-over-year increase, the biggest gain among 23 small business sectors it tracks that had greater than the median number of transactions in both 2023 and 2024. Ice cream shops (0.56x down to 0.54x) and hair salons (from 0.52x to 0.5x), meanwhile, tied for the worst performance, with both seeing their price-to-revenue multiples drop by 4% from 2023 to 2024.
Price-to-revenues or sales, represents the amount acquirers are willing to pay as a multiple of an enterprise’s annual revenues. While many small businesses routinely change hands at less than one times annual sales, the large publicly traded companies in the S&P 500 index trade for an average of more than 3 times revenues, and tech companies like Apple command more than nine times annual revenues. The highest price-to-sales ratio among the 9,530 deals that BizBuySell surveyed in 2024 came from bed-and-breakfast establishments which changed hands for a median price of $1.5 million, which was an average of 2.76 times annual revenues. The lowest multiples came from car dealerships, which sold for 0.23 times revenues and had a median sales price of $600,000.
The market shift evident in BizBuySell’s 2024 report reflects a change in how people have been approaching fitness. U.S. health club memberships topped 70 million in 2023 for the first time, according to the Sports & Fitness Industry Association. More people are exercising on their own too—156.1 million reported running or walking for fitness, the highest number ever recorded.
Maybe it’s Make America Healthy Again, the health movement led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that helped shape the 2024 election. With Kennedy as Secretary of Health and Human Services under Trump, the push for fitness is only getting stronger. In fact, on February 13th, the day Kennedy was confirmed, President Trump issued an executive order establishing the President’s Make America Healthy Again Commission to address rising rates of chronic diseases and declining life expectancies. Another tailwind: Ozempic and other weight-loss drugs are changing eating habits, cutting demand for junk food, and making it easier for people to be more active. At the same time, 15% of fitness clubs shut down during COVID, according to the Sports & Fitness Industry Association. That means demand is up, supply is down, and small business buyers think fitness, not indulgence, is the future.
“We’re on a health kick as a society,” says Lisa Riley, the 56-year old founder and president of Scottsdale, Arizona – based Delta Business Advisors, a business sales brokerage.
But there are other reasons buyers are drawn to gyms, says Riley. They’re a lifestyle business. Owners use their own facilities, engage with clients, and live the brand. It’s not just about making money—it’s about being part of the culture. Some, like one of her clients in Arizona, see it as something bigger. They don’t want gyms, which have been touchstones in their lives, getting scooped up by private equity. They want to keep them in the hands of people who actually care. “He’s tired of seeing all the private equity money come in and destroy small businesses.”
That passion is real, but it doesn’t change the fact that fitness brands come and go.
What’s hot today will be tomorrow’s punchline. Just ask anyone who bought Sweatin’ to the Oldies VHS tapes or threw punches with Billy Blanks in a Tae Bo class. More recently, spin and CrossFit had their moments, but participation in both has dropped more than 5% over the last five years, according to the Sports & Fitness Industry Association. The days of fighting for a spot in a SoulCycle class are over—now there’s plenty of room, if you can find a studio. Peloton hasn’t fared any better. Its stock is still down more than 50% from its pre-COVID initial public offering, not to mention the 90%-plus plunge from its pandemic induced bubble peak.
Emmet Apolinario, 61, co-founder and president of Columbus, Ohio’s Ohio Business Advisors, has been brokering small business deals for 21 years and has seen fitness trends rise and fall firsthand. His career started with franchised fitness centers, back when Curves—the women-only gym—was everywhere (it once held a Guinness World Record, since its more than 7,000 clubs made it the largest fitness franchise in the world). Then people lost interest, and the brand began to lose steam (fewer than 200 clubs remain in the U.S.). In total, he’s brokered more than $200 million in deals, and he thinks the current fitness boom kicked off around 2021 or 2022. These cycles or trends, he says, usually last four to six years, meaning he expects this one to “peter off in the next year and a half to two years.”
Day care centers and convenience stores were two other big winners. Day care centers, where the price-to-revenue multiple rose by 16% last year for an average 0.85, have benefited from two tailwinds, says Riley. The gradual shift back to in-office work has pushed up demand while COVID wiped out many providers, shrinking supply.
Convenience stores, which sold for a median price of $200,000 and an average of 0.41 times annual sales, have always been a strong market, but Apolinario and Riley both say the prospect of tighter U.S. immigration policies has made them even more appealing. These businesses have long been owned by immigrants and those looking to immigrate. With stricter visa policies on the horizon, buying a convenience store could provide a legal pathway into the country.
Not every industry is benefiting from these shifts.
Ice cream shops have taken a hit, partly because of the shift toward health and fitness, but also because of rising food costs and staffing challenges, says Apolinario. Many of these businesses rely on low-wage, seasonal workers, and finding and keeping staff has become harder, a challenge he says gyms don’t face. According to BizBuySell, the median price for an ice cream store was $152,500 in 2024, with an average price to sales multiple of 0.54.
Apolinario has sold plenty of ice cream and frozen yogurt shops over the years, but now he “cringes” when he gets calls about them. “The multiples are just not there,” he says. Sellers, especially those who bought into franchises, often expect to recoup their initial investment, but the market isn’t cooperating. Buyers aren’t willing to pay up, and many of these businesses are worth less than what their owners put in.
Hair salons, meanwhile, are dealing with a different problem: More businesses now let stylists rent chairs instead of working as employees, giving them a way to run their own mini-business without the upfront costs of opening a full salon. That’s made traditional salon ownership less attractive to buyers. On top of that, salons are often seen as a means to provide the owner with a job and a steady income, but without much potential to build long-term enterprise value, says Delta’s Riley.
“With a salon, at the smaller end, you’re buying yourself a job,” Riley says.
BizBuySell data is self-reported, meaning the financials, including revenue and sale price, come from the businesses listing for sale. The data reflects more than 9,500 transactions on BizBuySell in 2024 and does not represent the entire small business market. Price-to-revenue multiples are reported as a quarterly average along with the number of transactions. To calculate yearly averages, a weighted average was used, weighting each quarter by its number of transactions. Only industries with transaction counts above the median for both 2023 and 2024 were included in the price-to-sales growth rankings.
Price-to-revenue isn’t the final word in valuing a business. Buyers use it as a starting point—revenue has even been called a “vanity metric” because it says nothing about profitability. More important metrics like cash flow and earnings are murkier—less standardized, requiring more scrutiny, and often shaped by unique factors in each business. Self-reported revenue isn’t perfect either. “Revenue is going to be a little hinky too,” says Riley, but as these things go, it’s likely a higher-fidelity data point. The goal is to capture broad trends, not determine the exact change in value of any industry.
Just looking at industries that had five or more sales in the last year, Bed-and-Breakfasts, which had the benefit of strong real estate markets and a post-Covid resumption of travel, commanded the highest multiples 2.76. The U.S. has about 4,420 B&B businesses with about $3 billion in annual revenue, according to IBISWorld, and despite competition from short-term rentals, many travelers still prefer the traditional experience, complete with scones and awkward small talk.
Storage facilities also fetched a premium, thanks to the fact that Americans have too much stuff – nearly 20% of U.S. households rent a storage unit, according to an industry survey. And demand is on the rise. The same survey showed that renting storage to avoid having to downsize was in the plans for 14% of respondents. Those numbers could go even higher if buying a home remains unaffordable, as renters are more likely to face storage constraints.
Car washes came in third, with buyers paying 1.72 times revenue. This makes sense—car washes are cash-heavy, low-labor businesses with predictable demand. The U.S. has over 60,000 of them, with about $19.8 billion in annual revenue and 20%-plus profit margins, according to IBISWorld.
The rest of the list follows a similar pattern: businesses with steady demand, simple operations, or recession-proof services. Whether it’s a funeral home, laundromat, an assisted living facility, or an insurance agency, buyers are willing to pay up for reliability.
On the other end of the spectrum are businesses that sold for much lower price-to-sales multiples. These tend to have higher overhead, lower margins, or face intense competition, making buyers less willing to pay a premium for every dollar of revenue.
Car dealerships ranked at the bottom, selling for just 0.23 times revenue. Dealers move a lot of money, but profit margins are razor thin – typically around 4% on new cars, National Automobile Dealers Association data shows. Rising inventory costs and fluctuating demand also make them less attractive to buyers.
Grocery stores and restaurants also landed near the bottom, both businesses are known for low margins and high competition. Grocery stores often operate on margins of 1–3%, dipping to 1.6% in 2023, the lowest level since 2019. Restaurants face even tougher conditions, with about 60% failing within the first three years, according to some studies, though research out of the University of California, Berkeley in 2014 argued the failure rate was much lower (just 17%).
Nail salons, massage businesses, and bakeries made the list as well, all of which require steady foot traffic and long hours to turn a profit. Juice bars, a once-booming trend, have also cooled, with IBISWorld blaming consumers’ changing preference for low sugar drinks as one culprit.
Looking ahead, Riley expects construction and manufacturing businesses to stay in demand, at least in Arizona, where she’s based. Apolinario, meanwhile, has seen strong interest in another type of sitter—not for kids, but for dogs. “I cannot tell you how many people have strong interest in buying doggy daycare centers,” he says. According to BizBuySell, dog daycare and boarding establishments were among the top 20 highest multiple deals in 2024 averaging 1.18 times sales with a median price of $360,000.
As for where values might not hold up, Riley has one, broad warning: if a national E-Verify program becomes part of President Trump’s immigration reforms, it could negatively impact industries that rely heavily on undocumented labor. “That would hit a lot of HVAC, construction, and landscape businesses and may drive the values down,” she says.
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