Shoppers: Be Responsible. Downtown Retailers: Be Worthy

By Joe Borgstrom, Director
Specialized Technical Assistance
& Revitalization Strategy Division
Michigan State Housing Development Authority

We’re coming up on one of the most sacred holidays in the retail world…Black Friday. Shopping centers everywhere will be swarming with deal hunters. I’d like to take just a minute to say something to both shoppers and downtown retailers before the blitz of holiday shopping begins: Shoppers, be responsible. Downtown retailers, be worthy. What do I mean by this? This is what I mean…

Shoppers, before you put on the eye black and shoulder pads for some full contact shopping, take a few minutes to think about the impact your purchases will have. I don’t mean on the recipients. I mean on your community. Do you want your holiday gift to take your money out of your community, or be reinvested in it? Last year, Local First of Grand Rapids did a study on the impact of spending money locally and made some pretty startling discoveries. Chief among them, there is a major difference between buying an item at a chain store or buying the same item at a locally owned one. For every $100 spent, $30 more stayed in the community when it was purchased at a locally owned store.

How is that possible? Well, locally owned stores have owners that live…wait for it…locally. Locally owned businesses tend to hire other locally owned businesses for services that corporate chains hire other corporate entities elsewhere to do. Add to that the profits that would be shipped to corporate headquarters in New York or California stay in your community instead and are spent elsewhere in your community supporting other local businesses, charities, and paying taxes.  

Downtown Retailers, while everything I wrote above is true, do NOT take that as a license to slack off. You have the moral high ground; don’t give up that ground by not taking full advantage of your strengths.

Back in college during my very first marketing class, I learned the acronym, USP, or unique selling proposition. In short, your USP is what makes you different than the competition. Downtown retailers have been getting smarter and smarter about their USP and using their environment to their advantage. They are realizing that by offering a unique experience with superior service in a one-of-a-kind location they can compete for customers on a front where the competition can’t.

This advantage is multiplied when downtown retailers join forces to cross promote each other. The advantage is amplified again if downtown retailers use the built in nostalgia that their environment has during the holiday season. Currier and Ives never painted a holiday picture of people in sleeping bags camping in front of the Buy More waiting to purchase the latest installment of “Shoot ‘Em Up 3.” I’m pretty sure Norman Rockwell
didn’t either. 

By creating a warm, welcoming, customer-centric environment, downtown retailers can offer the epitome of the traditional holiday shopping experience. (CAUTION: retailers and their supporting Main Street organizations have to have the experience to back it up. As I posted after last holiday season, nothing can do more harm to your district’s image than over promising and under delivering.)

Downtown retailers can offer simple, low cost ways to increase the “warm and fuzzies” of the shopping experience. Free gift wrapping, hot cocoa, and great customer service are just a few ways. Don’t stop there, your downtown district could gather volunteers to carol, or have your own downtown Santa. In short, provide an environment, the products, and the experience that make you worthy to spend the money on.

Have a great Holiday season!