Downtown Retail: Stacking up the Competition
Athens is a bustling college town, filled with young people here to sample its eclectic nightlife, shopping and sports. But during summer and winter breaks, nearly 35,000 of these students migrate back to their homes. It’s quiet during the off-season in downtown Athens, but for the trickle of money bleeding from each small storefront off East Broad Street.
“This place becomes a ghost town during the summer” said Katie Davis, a permanent resident of Athens, “It’s a bizarre experience having so many people and then, within a week, they’re all gone.”
In the past five years, American Threads, Urban Outfitters and J. Crew and other big name chain stores have all joined the brawl in a city that is dependent on student sales in order to survive. With the high poverty rate in Athens-Clarke County, 39.3 percent which is nearly double the state’s poverty rate of 21.6 percent, according to Oneathens.org, it is the students rather than most permanent residents who bring disposable income.
“We certainly see a significant drop in business over the holiday break” said David Ippisch, owner of 100 Proof and The Hedges bars in a January interview with The Red & Black. And it’s not just bars that see this drop. About 45 percent of all retail businesses sold in Athens-Clarke County were sold during the critical periods of winter and summer break, indicating that when the students leave town, so does business.
The difference in scale of Urban Outfitters and its single-store brick and mortar counterparts puts the chain stores at an advantage when it comes to a seasonal economy. Not only do they have stronger brand recognition than the constantly rotating stream of storefronts downtown, but they also are able to access economy of scale, getting suppliers price breaks and setting prices lower to earn comparable profit margins.
“It’s obvious why companies have these problems,” said Kate Lackey, a fashion intern at Oprah magazine, “No one knows who they are, so they aren’t looking for their products, whether it be a hat, scarf or sweater. That’s why companies have to have an online website. So we can just type in the search bar and find their stuff.”
The Red Dress Boutique, a downtown pop-up dress-shop is a prime example of how important online sales are to a small business. In an interview with Amazon Payments, Josh Harbour, co-founder of the boutique said, “For us, starting a website was almost an act of desperation. The recession was particularly hard on retail, and all we had been was a single brick and mortar location in a college town.”
Harbour says that there is no limit to customers online, it’s all about the product, and when it comes to the product, small businesses have the advantage.
“If I want something unique, I go to a smaller store.” said Davis of why she shops at smaller pop-up boutiques, “I know that not everyone will have my dress, not like at Urban Outfitters.”
The competition is fierce, but with new strategies like online marketing, smaller businesses may stand a fighting chance in the off seasons of Athens’ economy.
