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Underserved retail markets are found in all sizes of cities and are not just limited to small, rural towns. When the city of El Paso, Texas, with a population of 742,062, began an assessment of their retail sector they discovered that they were not only underserved, but they also lacked a diversity of retail opportunities. "We began by studying the types of retailers in comparable markets such as Tucson and Albuquerque and quickly found that El Paso did not have the retail base of these two cities'," said Jessica Herrerra, economic development specialist for the city of El Paso. "We have a large population, there was no reason we shouldn't be able to attract the quality retailers we needed and wanted. A problem we did run up against was the fact we had a hard time quantifying the customers in our trade area - that's where Buxton came in."
Case Study: Moore, Oklahoma Proves that Persistence is the Key to Recruitment
The Pursuit of Retail For several years city leaders had been perusing Chick-Fil-A without success. Initially the company told these leaders that Moore didn’t fit their location criteria. The city contacted Buxton and asked for help in overcoming this objection. Buxton created a tailored pursuit package specifically for Chick-Fil-A which documented that the company had successful operations in communities with location characteristics similar to Moore.
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Buy-Local Campaigns: A Band-Aid Solution?With a goal of stopping or slowing dollars from leaving the community, civic organizations such as chambers of commerce often initiate buy-local campaigns. The intent is to either make citizens aware of the impact of lost retail sales on the local economy or to make them feel guilty for shopping out-of-town. |
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