Finding Main Street Customers Online

By encouraging and cultivating unique, local, independent commercial sectors, retail along Virginia’s Main Streets is on the rise. However, it is a brave new world that Main Streets retailers are operating in.

“Capitalism is creative destruction,” Richard Sylla stated in a recent Entrepreneur article. “Old models get outmoded, and new models come in and take over.”

Just as Main Street organizations must create effective fundraising plans to secure diversified and stable program funding, retailers must make every effort to diversify their customer base to ensure stable and growing revenue streams. The article in Entrepreneur states that the future of retail will have some online component and some offline component. Catering to consumers wherever they are,and in a robust, customized way, is a key growth strategy. Online sales accounted for 5.2 percent of total retail sales in the third quarter of 2012, according to the latest reading from the U.S. Department of Commerce, which tracks the category. That was up 17.3 percent from the same quarter a year earlier. By contrast, total retail sales over the period rose by only 4.6 percent.

Main Street Economic Restructuring committees should provide training to help their local Main Street retailers develop a balanced online/offline business strategy. For example, in January, Longwood SBDC guest speaker Marc Willson, retail consultant for Virginia SBDC, provided two free trainings for area retailers directly related to this topic. The first session, “Doing Business in a GAFA World,” GAFA stands for Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, was designed to help retailers attract more traffic and improve sales by smartly embracing relevant social media technologies and strategies. The second session, “Competing with the Big Boys,” reiterates that big box stores and national chains are strong competition for local, independent retailers and that these retailers need to have a strategy to keep their existing customers buying and to win new customers. More information about trainings provided by Marc Willson are available here.

Embracing Nature, Culture and History: Appalachia’s new economy

All across Southwest Virginia, the stories of men and women who worked in mines, furniture factories or textile mills can be read in the buildings you see today. In the coalfields, mining towns and camps sprang up wherever the coal seam led. Miners came from farms nearby, from the deep South and from Eastern Europe to earn the money that mining brought. Communities were self-contained. People shared their lives in schools, athletic teams, churches and shopping in the company store. Music was a bond and sometimes the only common language.

Photo from: http://myswva.org/

Brooke Jarvis’ recent post titled: 3 Lessons for Appalachia’s Post-Coal Economy, addresses the very pertinent question of “what happens when Appalachia is coal country no more?”

Brooke mentions the efforts of local, grassroots organizations that are “working to reform old industries and promote more sustainable ones, to build local entrepreneurial capacity and to make sure the region’s resources benefit residents over the long haul.”

In Virginia and all throughout Appalachia, there are ongoing efforts to build more diverse and resilient economies that take advantage of the rich cultural history and breathtaking natural resources the region has to offer.  

Photo from: http://myswva.org/

The Crooked Road, Virginia’s Heritage Music Trail includes 10 counties, three cities, 10 towns, five regional planning districts, four state agencies, two tourism organizations and a large number of music venues. Although the trail is focused on the uniqueness and vitality of this region’s heritage music, it also includes outdoor recreational activities, museums, crafts and historic and cultural programs. ‘Round the Mountain has focused its efforts to promote sustainable economic development of the region’s communities by assisting local artisans with marketing, educational and entrepreneurial opportunities. These great initiatives are part of a larger strategy to reinvigorate the economies of Virginia.  The Southwest Virginia website is a great resource for everything related to this region.

Plan your trip and come learn about the people who lived in coal camps and company towns. See photos and quilts, listen to stories and oral histories, visit churches, cemeteries and museums in towns across our region and visit the buildings and communities which remain bear witness to our rich history.

Photo from: http://myswva.org/

Virginia’s Appalachian Trail Communities

The Appalachian Trail Community™ designation program is a new program of the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, designed to recognize communities that promote and protect the Appalachian Trail (A.T.). The program serves to assist communities with sustainable economic development through tourism and outdoor recreation while preserving and protecting the A.T.

Completed in 1937, the 2,180-mile-long Appalachian National Scenic Trail is one of the longest, continuously-marked footpaths in the world. It spans through 14 states, ranging from Georgia to Maine. Virginia is home to 544 miles of the Appalachian Trial, more miles than any other state! There are 20 Appalachian Trail communities, 10 of them are in Virginia. From north to south, these are: Front Royal, Harrisonburg, Waynesboro, Buena Vista, Glasgow, Troutville, Pearisburg, Bland, Abingdon and Damascus. This year, Abingdon, a VMS community, was designated an Appalachian Trail Community™.

“Our town has long offered a respite for the weary hiker,” Abingdon Mayor Ed Morgan said in a written statement announcing the designation. “The Virginia Creeper Trail, which begins in Abingdon, is a natural connector to the A.T.” The designation ceremonywas held on Sept. 11, 2012.  Abingdon now joins the cities of Harrisonburg and Waynesboro, both designated Virginia Main Street communities that have embraced their proximity to the trail in their economic restructuring efforts, creating programs that attract hikers to their downtowns, as well as providing amenities and activities that are tied to the A.T.

Front Royal, Buena Vista and Pearisburg are VMS Commercial Affiliates.

Nestled 18 miles west of the A.T in the Shenandoah Valley, Harrisonburg is filled with locally-owned restaurants, museums, art galleries and shops.  Harrisonburg offers special packages for A.T. Hikers to make their stay an easier and more pleasant one. During their annual Valley 4th celebration, hikers are invited to participate in the parade.

The City of Waynesboro is located three miles from the junction of Skyline Drive and the Blue Ridge Parkway. “The Appalachian Trail Conservancy’s community designation for Waynesboro strengthens the city’s effort in becoming a premier outdoor recreation destination,” stated Katie McElroy, Waynesboro’s tourism director. “The opening of the first phase of the South River Greenway is key to Waynesboro’s commitment to the outdoors,” explains C. Dwayne Jones, director of Waynesboro Parks and Recreation. 

Plan your Appalachian Trail adventure and stay, shop and dine in any of these great Virginia communities.

Main Street Communities Partnering for Entrepreneur Development

This past spring, DHCD’s Virginia Enterprise Initiative awarded six innovation grants to help develop new and innovative techniques for cultivating and assisting micro-entrepreneurs. Three of the awardees (Bristol, Staunton and Waynesboro) are specifically targeting micro-entrepreneur development in their local Main Street districts.

Staunton Creative Community Fund, in Staunton, will continue to build off of its strong record of innovative entrepreneur development initiatives like Ignite Staunton and “Confessions of an Entrepreneur” by developing a local Hours Exchange Program, a networked community kitchen incubator and an online platform for sharing local Kickstarter projects.

Community Investment Collaborative (CIC) in Charlottesville will offer two 14-week entrepreneur development classes and will begin offering micro-financing to training graduates who want to start or expand their businesses.

United Virginia is expanding its micro-entrepreneur development services to southern Virginia. United Virginia will offer four 10-week entrepreneur development classes and will coordinate micro-financing for new or expanding businesses in southern Virginia.

Total Action Against Poverty (TAP) and its affiliate Business Seed Capital, Inc. (BSCI), working in the Roanoke region, is going to develop Virginia’s first solidarity lending program based on the Grameen Bank model. If successful, TAP and BSCI hope to establish the Virginia Chapter of Grameen America.

Believe in Bristol (BIB), Bristol’s Main Street organization, is going to develop and coordinate a micro-entrepreneur training and technical assistance program to encourage new businesses to fill up empty store fronts in Bristol’s Main Street district. The entrepreneur development program will be housed in BIB’s new offices.

The City of Waynesboro will work with nearby colleges and universities to develop a business competition program for new business graduates interested in starting a business in an empty store front in Waynesboro’s Main Street district. In addition to training and assistance in business start-up and micro-financing, the Waynesboro Downtown Development Inc. will help the three winners of the competition work with downtown landlords to find available rental space for their new businesses.

Secrets to Good Store Layout

Source: http://idowindows.wordpress.com/category/fashion-49/window-lessons/

No matter its size or product lines, every retail business must constantly work to create an attractive and inviting shopping environment. Here are a few tips from Entrepreneur.com to keep the customers coming.

1. Make the windows shine – “Just like your eyes are the windows of your soul, store windows are the eyes of the store. Each window should tell a story.”

2. Make an arresting first impression – An eye-catching display at the entrance will slow down customers and get them in the shopping mood.

3. Steer customers to the right – Shoppers tend to prefer to move right and walk counter-clockwise around the store. Make it easy and interesting for them to follow their natural shopping inclinations.

4. Lead them somewhere – Store layout should encourage customers to continue shopping. Eliminate aisles that lead to walls and other dead ends.

5. Have an angle – Create visual interest by placing aisles at angles (if space allows).

6. Create breaks – Shoppers get bored on long aisles – create visual breaks with signs or displays in the middle of long aisles.

7. Offer hugs – Use round and u-shapes on signs, displays and floor layouts. People find these shapes inviting.

One-on-one meetings with the retail consultants of the Virginia Small Business Development Center’s Small Town and Merchant Program can help retail and restaurant owners improve the layout of their businesses. To learn more about environmental influences on consumer behavior, check out Paco Underhill’s books Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping, Call of the Mall and What Women Want: The Science of Female Shopping.

Incentives

Economic Development incentives are a component of economic development policy to encourage growth in traditionally impoverished or underdeveloped areas in the United States.

Virginia offers a variety of performance-based incentives. From tax credits to tax exemptions, Virginia continues to demonstrate its willingness to invest in those who invest and reinvest in the commonwealth.

While economic development incentives have proven useful in many communities, there exists various unintended consequences of these programs; the most obstructive being their complexity.  For example, the financing structure of a real estate project utilizing tax credits can get very complex, and it is generally recommended that a knowledgeable consultant be retained to structure the deal.

Another challenge is identifying the various incentives available, their deadlines and how to apply.  There are many resources available that provide this information, but there is generally no central database as these programs are administered by various levels of government.

The Virginia Economic Development Partnership, through its Ally Information Exchange, provides a list of existing economic development incentives. The Virginia Department of Taxation’s website provides a list of tax credits available to businesses and individuals in Virginia.

Both the federal and state tax historic preservation tax credit programs are administered in Virginia through the Department of Historic Resources. Information and assistance with tax-credit projects may be requested from DHR’s Richmond office. Contact Elizabeth Tune at (804) 367-2323, ext. 110 or Julie Langan at (804) 367-2323, ext. 155. Also, for more information about the federal tax-credit, visit their Technical Preservation Services website.

The Virginia Tourism Corporation provides several grants and funding sources.

North Carolina State University has created a national database of State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency.

Please contact us if you have any questions about a particular incentive or to share your experiences with working through any of these programs.

From Virginia to the World

Virginia exports are rebounding after significant declines in 2008 and 2009 during the recession, increasing by nearly 6 percent in 2011 to $18.1 billion, ranking it as the 25th-largest exporting state in the U.S.  More than 83 percent of the nearly 6,600 companies that are involved in international trade, both imports and exports, have fewer than 500 employees.

There are many good reasons to export: reduced dependence on the domestic market; diversified sources of revenue; extended sales potential and product shelf life of existing products; and stabilized seasonal markets and sales fluctuations, to name a few.  

“Given the specter of a jobless economic recovery and lagging consumer spending,” said Todd McCracken, president of NSBA, “exporting may be one of the few areas remaining where small businesses can grow right now.”

However, for smaller firms that don’t have many resources, the idea of sending goods overseas can be daunting. Exporting to foreign markets comes with an array of issues, such as completing mounds of paperwork and deciphering often-complicated customs rules.

“You have to understand all the nuances of exporting to other countries,” said Luz Hopewell, director of the Small Business Administration’s Office  of International Trade. “Sometimes if (a firm) doesn’t get the right license or doesn’t have the right paperwork, the product can be returned from the shipping docks.”

The Small Business Administration (SBA) provides resources for business owners who are evaluating exporting their products. These include the Export Business Planner  and U.S. Export Assistance Centers.  

Virginia has a deep history  of producing high-quality artisanal products including furniture, glass, musical instruments, jewelry, wines, grains and produce, among many others.

It is time to expand the export of these great products for the entire world to enjoy!

Entrepreneurs. Better with age?

Entrepreneurs are the lifeblood of the economy. They’re innovators, experimenters and risk takers, the driving force behind capitalism’s “perennial gale of creative destruction,” in economist Joseph Schumpeter’s evocative metaphor.

So says Chris Farrell in this week’s Bloomberg Businessweek.

But Mr. Farrell goes on to remind us that entrepreneurs are not only young, brash, rule breakers.  They also include older, more seasoned innovators.  Fully 20.9% of all new entrepreneurial ventures are started by people 55-64 years old.

These entrepreneurs may be forming enterprises because they finally have the security to follow their dream, or maybe they were laid off and found finding a new, challenging job toward the end of their career arc to be difficult.  Others may be looking for a little more control of their work-life balance as they make a 20- or 30-year transition to retirement.

Regardless of their reasons, there businesses may be well suited to the scale of your downtown.

Well-wired Winchester is as close to Dulles Airport, in terms of travel time, as downtown D.C. and is better hooked into the Ashburn “home” of the Internet than almost any place in the world.  A transitioning entrepreneur might find the housing, rent and tax rates beneficial, while cherishing the more relaxed lifestyle that a pedestrian-oriented comercial district, closely abutted by historic residential neighborhoods, can provide.

USAToday printed a similar article last month, and Slate published one as far back as 2010, detailing reasons why older entrepreneurs may be more successful, not the least of which is access to capital.

Farrell, too, gives several reasons that older entrepreneurs may have a leg up on their younger competition, but a successful community could use both.  Making sure you are providing the necessary tools and amenities for all entrepreneurs is vital.

New life for an old general store

The Richmond Times-Dispatch has a good story on the revival of the Draper Mercantile and Trading Company. The story will be one that is familiar to many on Main Street. The once thriving general store, the place where everyone once shopped, picked up the mail, chatted with neighbors and friends, doesn’t survive the coming of the mall, the collapse of the primary employment industry or the passing of the original owner. After lying dormant for years, a visionary sees the building’s potential and makes the substantial investment necessary to bring the building back to life by adding a new retailer (like The General Store and Inn in Altavista), a new restaurant (like The Union Station Restaurant and Bar in Harrisonburg ), an entertainment venue (like Lynchburg’s Historic Academy of Music Theatre) or a place to live (like Winchester’s Solenberger Hall).

Building on a community’s existing assets, no matter how shabby they may appear to be, is what Main Street is all about. Behind the chipped paint, broken windows and forgotten boxes could be a gem just waiting to once again shine.

VMS adds “Reports” page to blog

One of the many services that Virginia Main Street (VMS) provides designated Main Street communities is access to the technical expertise available from the National Trust Main Street Center (NTMSC). Although the work of the NTMSC is always community specific, the observations and recommendations that are included in the reports are valuable resources for any community in Virginia that is attempting to implement the Main Street Four-Point Approach^® as a strategy for downtown revitalization.

We think that the observations and recommendations from the NTMSC staff are great stuff, and we want to share them with the VMS community. Therefore, at the top of the blog page you will now find the “Reports” tab. This tab will take you to our new VMS reports page.

To initiate our new reports page, we have added the eight “Economic Restructuring and Technical Assistance Visit Reports” recently completed by NTMSC Senior Program Officer Todd Barman. Additional reports will be posted when they become available.