As I've hinted about for the past couple of weeks, the results from the Chamber of Commerce's Shopping Survey have been compiled and released to the public. We released a condensed version of the data at the Chamber's last mixer on Thursday, 5/26 at the Community Center. The mixer was open to the public at no charge, but even so, there were only about 20 attendees. You could say that the Chamber didn't announce the date of the mixer loudly enough, but it was on both Altadenablog and AltadenaPatch.com, and I know I gave ample notice of it on the store's Facebook page.
Why so few attendees? We'll look at that in just a minute - first I'd like to talk about why we decided to put this, admittedly rudimentary, survey together in the first place. We knew going in that most people up in our neck of the woods want more choices in 1) grocery shopping, 2) dining out and 3) retail shopping. What we needed was verification of this, so we can continue our dialog with Los Angeles County in an informed manner. They need to not just hear us, but hear you as well. We want to give them not just anecdotal evidence, but hard numbers that encompass a good portion of the town,,,,and this survey of just under 400 people gave us that.
Verification of what we thought going in appeared in the survey. The number one requested shopping venue was for a healthier choice in groceries, a la Trader Joe's or the Arroyo Food Co-op. And yes, the Arroyo Food Co-op was mentioned over and over again in the written section, where we asked the survey takers to elaborate on what type of business they'd like to see in Altadena. Same went for restaurants - the requests for healthy/organic/vegetarian dining options were many. As for retail, I was surprised that only 15 respondents out of 370 answered the question "Why Do You Not Shop Locally", with 7 people giving the answer of "lack of choices". However, continuing on with the survey, I was completely blown away that when asked to elaborate where the respondents did shop in town,...there were 360 answers!
Sooo....our residents do shop in town! I did a little counting of my own, and out of those 360 responses, 201 mentioned they shop Webster's. And out of those 201, a good third of those named Webster's Fine Stationers by name. That made me feel good! Altadena Hardware, under new management this year, put in a great showing, too, with just over a hundred mentions. Our restaurants received mention, too, with Foxes, Amy's Patio Cafe and El Patron being the frontrunners of that category.
But back to the question, why so little attendance at the mixer? Are there really that few people on-line in Altadena? Or are we faced with a situation where people just don't care anymore? In a retail group I'm a member of, the question of how to get people to care about your shop is asked in different forms repeatedly. As shop owners, we not only have to be good businesspeople, we also have to have the ability to read the future as well. We have to forecast the climate for certain products and services, which tend to wax and wane like the moon, and we have to pick up on the tendrils of a trend. The trend of indifference has long been in place, I think, longer than I've been in retail. With the advent of the big box corporate stores, the glut of advertisement you receive in your face every single day wears me out....and I'm a retailer! No wonder there's such apathy - too many choices and we get locked into our same old, same old routine of habit. You have to be truly different to stand apart, a trendsetter.
My tip to other retailers and business people is this: there is a trend out there, one that will leave the big boxes and the internet retailers in possible shambles in the not-too-distant future. The trend towards localization is huge and growing. People, as in the people who took our survey, WANT to shop in their neighborhoods. They don't want to travel 20 minutes or a half an hour to get to some mega mall, they want a place close by where they can come in, get what they need, maybe spend a few moments talking to acquaintances and go home. Or they want a place nearby they can depend on to delight them, whenever they stop in. Our challenge is to serve that up to our residents....with a smile. Can we offer that to you, Altadena? You bet.....just watch us!
On this Memorial Day, we hope you've had a pleasant long weekend! Best wishes to you in the coming week,
Lori & Scott
2 comments:
Great stuff. I'm impressed by the research you all did on this.
Thanks, John! I'd been waiting impatiently for the results for weeks, so I ate it up when they finally released them. Nothing else is going to give us the information we need to plead our case with the County. There will be a nice shopping area in Altadena!
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