Main Street Revisited

Don't want to highjack the other thread:

What happened in our area from 72 to present occurred before Wal Mart put in a store 17 miles away from Battle Lake MN.

The farm economy collapsed. Many small farms disappeared. That greatly reduced the customer base for the small town stores. With fewer farms the need for train service for freight (grain, lumber yard and Ford/New Holland AG and autos) died and the tracks were pulled out. Elevator closed and so did the Ford dealer. Jobs disappeared. The locals had to start commuting to larger communities to work. When they left for work the stores were not open. By the time they got home the stores were closed. Again reducing the customer base because of conflicts in operating hours. Battle Lake lost the Ford New Holland dealer, elevator, one hardware, a clothing store, 1 grocery and other businesses through the years. Population is steady but most people drive to other towns to work. They stop at places like Wal Mart, K Mart, Target, Fleet Farm, Service Foods and Home Depot on their way home if they need something because nothing but the bar, C stores and bowling ally are open by the time they get home. Also back in the day many locals, both town and farmers were not going to waste time and gas driving elsewhere to shop. Today people here don't think anything about going to the larger towns to shop.

Yea it's sad. But you cannot blame it entirely on the box stores. Part is because of economic changes that saw a lost of local jobs. Part because the business owners didn't truly serve their customers by simply changing business hours to accommodate them and their new hours and part is the price point shoppers. Another change that few seem to address is the fact that many families now have to have both parents working so mom isn't home to shop in town.

Rick

I"m was born and raised just outside the city limits of Charlotte, a fairly large city. Outside Charlotte are a lot of smaller communities, towns, or whatever you want to call them that once had thriving downtown districts. Even at my young age of 45 I have seen exactly the same things you are describing happen around here. I think one of the main things, like you stated, was the refusal of the smaller businesses to change their hours to match the schedules of their customers. I mean how can someone drive to work an hour away, get off at 5, make it back home in traffic, and then go to the closest business (ie the small/main street shop) when the owners of said shop decided they were going to work "normal" hours and close their doors at 5 or even 6 PM. In the end it cost them a lot of money in business, and ultimately, for some, their entire business simply because they refused to meet an all important customer demand.

Heck even many of the large companies do the same thing. Around here the NAPA"s routinely close around 6 PM, while most of the other parts houses stay open until 9 or 10 PM. Personally I like shopping at my local NAPA because they more or less cater to commercial clients, but when I need something after business hours, I have no choice but to take my business elsewhere. I guess this works for NAPA simply because so large of a percentage of their customers are commercial garages -vs- individuals, but they could still pick up a lot more business simply by staying open an additional hour or two in the evenings.

I have travelled through 36 American states, avoiding as many
citiies as pssible, but I do drive the side roads and visit the
towns. The first thing we all noticed was the lack of a main street
in nearly every town. In the British Isles we have nearly
everything you would need in most of our main streets, but
unfortunately that is changing, we are slowly heading towards
the shopping malls and big name stores, the small grocery shops
are nearly all gone, but they have moved to the petrol stations.
The only petrol stations that seem to do well are the modern
type with a supermarket attached. Our society is just like yours
in ways, a lot of young couples have over spent on mortgages
cars and clothes and both have to work out full time to keep up
with the Jones....but another thing we see happening is that
individual women only shop for the basics......most women here
get together wth a friend, or a sister or( in Mrs 40s case) their
mother, and they go on shopping exdeditions to another town,
just for a change of scenery. It is not unknown for women here
to drive through several good shopping towns to get to a large
outlet store! Never can understand that, but then she says she
cannot understand me going to America to look at old tractors!
Sam

My town has just two "C" stores, one gas station, two little restaurants and a small hardware. 60% of the population shops in one next town that is "sprawling." That town is constantly wringing their hands about the condition of downtown, and then a year ago they took an independent restaurant property in order to widen one of the main streets. The owners of the restaurant, which incidentally was in an historic 1700s building, whom I knew, wanted permission to fill a small wetlands area in order to have adequate parking, after loosing some in front. The town denied them, took the land, and then allowed a regional chain to fill the wetlands for their project out behind. How dumb is that? How is main street supposed to compete against that mentality?

I under stand what you are saying about the hours as I did the 50 mile rat race commute for over 20 years. How ever being the owner and sole proprietors of a small town True Value hardware store in my 5th year now and am moving it to a bigger location. This week. I tried staying open till 9pm for the very reason you have stated. I did a mass mailing to announce the newer longer hours also. Well after a year of trying it. This is what I have learned. In a small town you do not have enough paying customers shopping till 9pm to pay a person to run the store so you are losing money not making it and I am at the store now 12 hours a day 6 day’s a week and do not have it in me to be open till 9pm for 14 hours with a 29 mile ride to and from the store day in and day out. That is like milking another 20 cows when you stanchion barn is to small for your heard and you have to switch out 20 morning and night day in and day out . Been their dun that also. 30 years ago.

(quoted from post at 23:20:34 11/16/13) Don't want to highjack the other thread:

What happened in our area from 72 to present occurred before Wal Mart put in a store 17 miles away from Battle Lake MN.

The farm economy collapsed. Many small farms disappeared. That greatly reduced the customer base for the small town stores. With fewer farms the need for train service for freight (grain, lumber yard and Ford/New Holland AG and autos) died and the tracks were pulled out. Elevator closed and so did the Ford dealer. Jobs disappeared. The locals had to start commuting to larger communities to work. [b:b1eaa3f96d]When they left for work the stores were not open. By the time they got home the stores were closed.[/b:b1eaa3f96d] [b:b1eaa3f96d]Again reducing the customer base because of conflicts in operating hours[/b:b1eaa3f96d].......

Rick

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A very good point! That's something that always baffles me. When a business is having a hard time they never, never, NEVER do what they need- open earlier and close later! We had a Ford/NH dealer nearby. The place was always closed for noon to 1:00PM and only open a half day on Saturday. The owner was complaining to me about revenue and I said, "Why not send Jim, the other counter man, to lunch at 11 and you go at noon? Give him a half day off during the week and have him stay open till 5 on Saturday? Or why not stay open till 6PM on weekdays when the other dealers are closed? NO FREAKING WAY would he even consider it!!!! He said, "Nobody comes here from noon to 1:00!" I told him that was garbage because there was almost always a line of people at the door when he got back from lunch! He wasn't willing to put more time into his business and he lost Ford, lost NH, lost Long and pretty much everything else. And THEN he tried to sell the store! He could have gotten a good $750K- 1 Mill or more when he had Ford, NH, etc. When he tried to sell at $400K he got laughed at and not one nibble!

If you want to be self employed in retail and make a good living you have to be open when people can get to you. Simple, simple fact.

It's happened everywhere, Our city finally quit talking and worrying about it and went to doing something about it. We don't have the grocery stores, clothing stores, hardware stores.... like we used to. But we do have a pretty vibrant downtown with 3 bar restaurants (family friendly) a shoe store, jewelry stores, dollar general, furniture store and many small other business.

NC communities, large and small, are catering to the younger, upwardly mobile or yuppie crowd. They are working to keep those folks within the communities they live and were educated, especially if a college is nearby.

These folks have no concept of the responsibilities of owning and maintaining a home. They mainly want to work, if they have a job, then go to places and hang out, entertain themselves, and see and be seen.

Many of these people age well into their 40s before they get serious about accepting the fact that they must begin preparing to care for themselves as they age. They live the lives of the Roman Emperor Nero as long as they can.

The parking lots of the local high-end eateries during the last few years of recession always seem full, and many new and expensive cars fill parking lots. They are spending their retirement and old age income now.

The real working and responsible folks that I know do not follow this crowd. It's a tale of two societial cultures within most communities here.

In a nutshell, there used to be four farmers to a section (640 acres), now there are four sections to a farmer! My 2 cents.

The customers select the mode of shopping they want and when to buy....not the store owner.

All across America customers could have continued to shop on main street of their residental community or nearest small town, but they chose not to. That is why the "hubtown" model with big box stores and better resturants have reconfigured the shopping patterns everywhere.

Before the mainstreet model, with clusters of stores in small towns, huckster wagons traveled the country side. Obviously, that model fell apart, as travel to town became easier.

Retailing and travel patterns are constantly evolving. But it is the customer who decides which store is worthy of their dollars.

I can see what you mean as far as the changing demographic,that businesses need to change with the customer base,but I remember back when the town was thriving you'd better not even need a loaf of bread on Sunday because nothing was open except for the drug store,which was open from 10 til noon.

I'd lay the root cause of many small towns going away on the doorstep of the USDA that encouraged and had policies of the Get Big or Get Out with
farming.When the small farmers got out many took their families and left the area to be able to find a way to make a living.Larger operations don't buy from local mechants or suppliers like the small ones do.

True, in 1950's you had 10 farmers, each with 160 acres and every three years they bought a new pickup....10 trucks.

Now you have 1 farmer, farming 1600 acres and every three years he buys a new pickup...1 truck.

That is just one of the reasons why so many little local car dealers disappeared, over the last 50 years.

More like 5 0r 6 here.

I think a lot of the shopping used to be done by stay at home moms. With mom working, she can't get to the stores on a 9 x 5 schedule.

In the little town where I grew up, ONE business was open on Sundays: the local ice house. In the summers, he had a constant line of cars with picnic-ers, boaters, fishermen, etc. That was before the day when home refrigerators had ice makers, and when the local saddle club had a pitch-in dinner after a Sunday afternoon trail ride, in the back of someone's truck was a washtub or two with sodas that had been iced down since just after church services let out. If you needed bread, milk, sodas, hot dogs, or potato chips, the ice house was the ONLY business open on Sunday to sell 'em to you. He also sold beer, but NEVER on Sunday. Of course, you could get a "twin-pack" of Lay's Potato Chips for 59 cents back then, too...so a lot else has changed since those days.

I have to agree with those that commented many small town stores are only open during daylight business hours. The only exceptions are taverns and maybe a gas station. Small town downtowns often "roll up the sidewalks" after 6pm. Two income families are forced to shop at the big box stores on the out skirts of the larger towns.

When the jobs, the shopping and the schools are all better in the larger towns, eventually mamy younger families move to the larger towns.

Living in Concord for the last 18 years, but having grown up in Charlotte, I have seen the way things have grown, and I know exactly what your taking about. What used to be said was that Charlotte wanted to grown and be the next Atlanta, and maybe that"s still partially true, but what I see is that regardless of what "Charlotte" wants, the younger people want it to be more like NYC, San Fransisco, etc. In other words they want a life like the actors on the TV show Friends where everyone works during the day at some nondescript job, than parties all night, day in and day out. They don"t have a car to drive because they take a trolley, cab, or subway everywhere, and their only bill is a rent payment every month in some downtown condo close to their favorite bar/club.

The way I see it though, let them do what they want, because the more of them we can pack into the city itself, the more room, and peace and quite, it leaves for folks like us outside the city, where we preffer to be.

I agree. Everything is geared towards the larger chain stores....more business in the town, more employment. How can smaller businesses ever compete? I remember a shoe repairman that used to sell shoes, he said he has to buy 500 pair or they would not sell to him, so he stopped selling shoes... but you can buy shoes at the wal-mart in town, for the most part not quality shoes...but shoes. Buy and then throw away when they wear out.

Also the issue of price differences. The
big box stores are cheaper and maybe also
employ the small town customers, so as
long as they are that close anyway they
might as well buy where it is cheap. Then
after 20 years of that they complain that
nothing is open anymore.
Example; my wife works in a city 5 days
a week. On Friday school gets out early
and the boys usually go to a babysitters
house so my wife picks up her order of
groceries at Sam's Club, then uses her gas
card at a nearby gas station. On the other
hand I usually try to shop with the local
people but I will also buy tractor parts
off the internet where they bring them to
my door with no traveled by me.

Good friend of mine constantly complains because the local small towns have changed so much. Now, he's retired mind you so he can shop when ever he wants to. Where does he go? 25 miles to Wal Mart. With him everything is price point. Main Street Battle Lake changed long before Wal Mart was built 17 miles away.

The comment about fewer farmers is basically the same point I made. Thing is few of the farmsteads around here are vacant. The numbers haven't changed too much plus there are a heck of a lot more lake homes now than in the 70's, so the population is there. Back in the day most of the locals worked local. They worked for farmers, elevators, equipment and car dealers that are now gone. They could run to the hardware store at lunch time. Now they drive into the larger towns to work and the hardware store is closed before they get home.

Rick

(quoted from post at 01:20:34 11/17/13)When they left for work the stores were not open. By the time they got home the stores were closed. Again reducing the customer base because of conflicts in operating hours.

Part because the business owners didn't truly serve their customers by simply changing business hours to accommodate them and their new hours and part is the price point shoppers.

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Oldtanker, we have the exact same thing going on here. Whine and cry because the downtown is dying (dead really) but refuse to do anything meaningful to change it. They even pooled money to hire a consultant, who couldnt think themselves out of a wet paper sack. They do several promotions during the year, christmas carols with hot chocolate and cookies and all that kind of thing but they never put 2 and 2 together, the reason they have raving turnout during those events is because its fun planned a couple times a year and because [b:43ef7dd6e5][i:43ef7dd6e5]its in the evening[/i:43ef7dd6e5][/b:43ef7dd6e5]. I swear, they never add it up: "Hey, look there is John, we never see you." So John says, "Ya, I work durning the day, its nice that you are open tonight". "Hey, Bill, thanks for stopping in!" "No problem, I got off work at 6 and thought I would stop on my way home". It goes on and on all evening long like that. They just dont get it though. Eventually, I just gave up on caring about the downtown, they have all the tools and information needed to do what is needed. We cant turn back the clock to 1950 again but the downtown [i:43ef7dd6e5]could[/i:43ef7dd6e5] be viable enough to not die, to keep a decient holding to stay there and provide a good income to the business owners and even send kids to college. We would still get big box stores on the edge of town but the downtown could still be alive and well. The problem is, the business owners are making a [b:43ef7dd6e5]choice[/b:43ef7dd6e5] not to do what needs to be done. When that became clear to me, I gave up caring.

You're right Rich. Find a successful gun shop and 95 out of 100 they are open till 9PM. Why? Because they know their customer base! Same for motorcycle dealers and others. My chainsaw shop when had Husky and logging was going strong was open till 7-8PM. Why? Because the logger worked from 5AM till 4PM and it took another 45 minutes to an hour to get out of the woods. Figure in fuel, supper, phone calls and it was 6-7 before they could get to the shop.

(quoted from post at 06:17:49 11/17/13) I under stand what you are saying about the hours as I did the 50 mile rat race commute for over 20 years. How ever being the owner and sole proprietors of a small town True Value hardware store in my 5th year now and am moving it to a bigger location. This week. I tried staying open till 9pm for the very reason you have stated. I did a mass mailing to announce the newer longer hours also. Well after a year of trying it. This is what I have learned. In a small town you do not have enough paying customers shopping till 9pm to pay a person to run the store so you are losing money not making it and I am at the store now 12 hours a day 6 day’s a week and do not have it in me to be open till 9pm for 14 hours with a 29 mile ride to and from the store day in and day out. That is like milking another 20 cows when you stanchion barn is to small for your heard and you have to switch out 20 morning and night day in and day out . Been their dun that also. 30 years ago.

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Dont cry because you are not scheduling your labor correctly. Those shelves dont stock themselves, schedual a small stock crew and a cashier (that also faces the front of the store when not checking out customers) for your open late night. When customers come in, there is someone to help and check them out, getting work done in the mean time. While 9pm sounds great, it usually is not a huge money maker. Staying open 2 night till 7pm would help your bottom line alot more than one night till 9pm.

True Value helps you with this things and covers this during the conferences. While the choice is yours, its in your best financial interest to listen to people when they tell you these things. Good luck.

One of the big reasons customers cite for not shopping on main street is the poor parking. So our town passed a parking ordinance to restrict long term (all day parking). Guess who got the tickets...the store owners. Some people never learn, the CVS store took the best parking spot in the lot and restricted it to "Employee of the month". Watch the shift change at the Kroger store. Best 10 parking spaces in the lot are taken up by employees.....could have accompdated 200 custormers (with turnover) in a 10 hour day,
Kroger store manager defended his employees.

Walmart employees only park in the prime spots one day....usually their last.

When the State made the highway from my town to the "city" 15 miles away it sucked the life out of our local retail establishments. Prior to the four laning it was a chore to make the round trip, after the upgrade making the trip became a non issue (except for our local retailers).

But before that, the same thing happened to the country stores that were the focal point of rural communities. Improved roads and the fact everyone had transportation closed most of these establishments. Going to town used to be a big deal, now it's commonplace. The big box stores are just the "icing on the cake."

I see the same thing. Fix a lot of family and friends cars and trucks, of course they usually dont show up till after they get off work. I try and buy most of my parts at a locally owned auto parts shop but they close early. So, I wind up buying oil, filters at walmart, and parts at Advance or Autozone when I would rather support a locally owned business.