Successful Store Hours Campaigns

Sarah O’Brien – Bastrop Main Street     (This paper was created from a listserv conversation initiated by Sarah in September 2016.)

 

When I first got to Bastrop, I was impressed that the majority of our stores and restaurants are open on Sundays, and we have a very successful First Friday Art Walk program that features extended hours at the majority of our retailers! In my previous life, we fought hard to have a successful First Friday program, but it never took off. We also only had a handful of stores and no restaurants open on Sundays. Thankfully, from what I understand that has changed significantly. Of course success is always only a matter of opinion, and simply because we have a lot of open businesses on Sunday, we still face significant challenges, because the majority of our stores and restaurants are closed on Mondays. Due to our proximity to the Hyatt, Mondays are reported as one of our busiest days downtown, and this past Monday, Labor Day, we had huge crowds, who were very disappointed in the lack of options for shopping and dining. It’s easy for us to suggest that our stores need to be open 7 days a week, from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. or what have you, but the reality is the majority of our businesses are small independent, who struggle to find and afford additional staff to keep the doors open, and it’s difficult to justify such an expense, if the traffic doesn’t warrant it. Of course it’s difficult to expect the traffic to be there if no one is open, ahhh the chicken and the egg dilemma.

While I definitely don’t have all of the answers , here’s what I think we can do to address store hour issues in our own communities (besides sending every single business owner you have to Jon Schallert’s Destination Business Bootcamp, which is what we all should do if we had unlimited pots of money, but since we don’t, here you are.)

1.       Remember we are all in the same ocean, but all in different boats. What works for one downtown, may not work for yours.

2.      Create an inventory of current store hours (this only took me 4 months to get around to in Bastrop.) Remember to update it regularly and that no matter how hard you try there will always be incorrect information on the spreadsheet. As soon as you finish it will become obsolete because a store will open or close or change their hours, but do it anyways.

3.      Share the inventory with your merchants and encourage them to keep copies handy at their registers, so they can encourage visitors to shop at the other open businesses. (Again you will have to remind and encourage them a lot, because they are busy and overwhelmed business owners. Remember every time you hand it out, it will become obsolete as soon as you pass it out, but do it anyways. Regularly.)

4.       If by the grace of god you actually have some fairly consistent hours in your downtown, POST IT EVERYWHERE! Your museum, your chamber, your visitor’s center, your social media, your website, city hall wherever. But ONLY if it’s consistent.

5.      Use this data you compiled to compare and see where your holes are. Evaluate your data on open hours. I am a big believer in not just consistency of hours but also variety of hours. There should always be some businesses open every day of the week. You don’t ever want someone to arrive to town and have “nothing” be open. (Remember nothing is a comparative term, just because a visitor or merchant says there is “nothing” open that normally means a few businesses are closed, and you need to show them which businesses are open by arming your merchants with the information.)

6.      DEFINE YOUR MARKET. This is crucial. Who is shopping in your downtown? Who is dining in your downtown? Is it locals? Do your locals commute, can they even make it downtown after 6 p.m. to shop or are they too busy getting kids ready for school the next day?  Is it visitors? What are they coming to town for? When are they visiting?  Do business owners only eat lunch and breakfast downtown? Do you attract a younger crowd looking for nightlife?  This is so important, and relates to number 1. Bastrop businesses need to be open on Mondays because our traffic warrants it, but other towns may not even need to concern themselves with Mondays or being open after 6 p.m. at all.

7.      Define your target hours/days you would like to see expanded hours. For Bastrop that is Mondays (and Labor Days) Figure out what will work best for your community so that you have an attainable goal to work towards.

8.       Consider your merchants/restaurants FIRST and FOREMOST, always.

9.      Garner support! If you are crazy enough to put the effort into trying to expand your hours, make sure you are not alone. Your board and your committees all need to be involved in this endeavor. And I would make darn sure you have a merchant/restaurant leader in the mix as well. Most merchants could care less about what we tell them they should or shouldn’t do; they say we don’t run our own businesses like they do; we don’t understand what they go through… So, get someone who is already open extended hours or willing to get on board and lead the charge, in your group. They are more likely to listen to someone in their own shoes.

10.   Set a small time frame to test out extended hours, Make sure to consider your         merchants/restaurants and try not to impose something that will be a huge burden on them. Small steps.

11.   Beg, plead, for stores to participate.

12.   Get commitments from businesses for the trial period. If you have any data such as what a certain stores foot traffic count is on a particular day or period of extended hours, use that to lure folks into staying open. Make sure they COMMIT, a contract, a form, a blood oath, whatever, but make sure they commit.

13.   Distinguish those businesses participating in your trial- window clings, chloroplast signs, Facebook, your website, whatever. Make sure you give them whatever you can to get exposure for their business.

14.   Promote the ever loving heck out of this trial period. Get people downtown. Get them in your stores.

15.   Once the trail period is over, everyone will complain and moan that no one was shopping or entering their stores and at least half of your participants will vow not to participate again.

16.   Go back to # 9 and repeat again. Eventually it will stick and it will work, because eventually the chicken has to have an egg? Or something? Right?

Signed,

 Additional Resources

  • Another thing to think about is that if you want downtown to be a destination, according to Roger Brooks in his 20 Ingredients of an Outstanding Downtown presentation (http://www.rogerbrooksinternational.com/20_Ingredients_Handout.pdf)
    • Lease agreements included defined operating hours and days • 70% of all consumer spending (both locals and visitors) takes place after 6:00 pm. Are you open? • People spend the night where there are things to do after 6:00 pm. Visitors don’t like sitting in a hotel room after dinner watching TV. • Conferences and conventions are booked around things to do AFTER the meetings adjourn that day. • The majority of the businesses must be open after 6:00, not just a few. If half the stores in the mall closed at 6:00 rather than 9:00, would you go to the mall after 6:00? • Start by staying open on Friday and Saturdays until 7:00 pm the first year, then add Thursday, then Wednesday. • Bring nighttime music and entertainment downtown to provide incentives for people to go.

If there are 10 good places to go downtown, which can include retail and spaces, then you are in the destination category. And just think if the stores in that group of 10 are open consistent and later hours, then you’ve got it goin’ on! 

 

 

 

Bastrop First Friday Art Walk

Bastrop First Friday Art Walk