Retail roundup: nonprofit public market opens in Anacostia | City owned markets | Experience retail

Retail in low income communities.  Eater reports, "A José Andrés-Backed Cafe Named for Marion Barry Opens in Ward 8," that a public market form of business has opened in Ward 8 to sell locally grown produce and prepared foods.  

Marion Barry Avenue Market brings aisles of fresh produce and fast-casual soul food to Anacostia, an underserved community with access to only one major grocery store until now. Named in honor of the late D.C. Mayor Marion Barry, whose life and political legacy is closely tied to Ward 8, the market and cafe debuts to the public on Saturday, September 27. Spearheaded by urban food justice nonprofit Dreaming Out Loud, the project is partly backed by Longer Tables Fund — celebrity chef José Andrés’ philanthropic arm that connects at-risk communities with affordable food options. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner is served daily for pickup and on-site dining across indoor communal tables and a garden patio. There’s also a demo kitchen to host classes around cooking and nutrition. The market is stocked with locally grown fruit and vegetables sold at a sliding-scale price with voucher‑friendly options, too (1303 Marion Barry Avenue SE).

I'm pretty sure I suggested something like this many many years ago, but I can't find an entry.

However, with the news that Starbucks is closing their Anacostia store ("Anacostia Starbucks closure stings, even as some see a neighborhood ‘renaissance’," Washington Post).  WRT the Starbucks closures across the country ("Why Starbucks is closing hundreds of stores," CNN, "This is why your Starbucks just closed," Boston Globe) either the stores are unprofitable or marginally profitable, but even if profitable the return on investment is likely less than the cost of capital. Hence closure.

WRT both the Starbucks story and the Marion Barry Avenue Market, it reminds me of the now 13 year old entry:

-- "In lower income neighborhoods, are businesses supposed to be "community organizations" first?"

Re-reading it, it's damn good, and is on my mind in part because I am working on a piece on how to build an entrepreneurship ecosystem in low income neighborhoods.  

The points made then are equally relevant today in terms of how to provide retail options in neighborhoods that can't support traditional retail business models.

New urbanists and the desire for neighborhood retail/the 15 minute city.  This also comes up for higher income communities and how new urbanists clamor for corner stores ("Bring Back the Corner Store," Planetizen, "Reviving neighborhood stores, CNU)), like the good old days ("The Corner Store: At the Intersection of Memory and Time," Post).  

The problem is that retail business models don't support stocking stores at this micro-scale, where goods can be sold reasonably cheaply.  

The same goes for the 15 minute city.  Retail business models don't work at the scale of a 3/4 mile walking distance, you need to draw on a much larger radius to generate the number of customers needed for success.  

The proof of this is NYC and other large cities.  There, small corner stores work because of the population density, and there are some business cooperatives like Key Foods Group that focus on that market.  Even so, store models needing larger customer bases cluster in the city equivalent of a regional shopping district, like Union Square, with its Whole Foods Market.

I counter always with the example of the Spar business group in Europe (and other countries) which has a system set up to support small stores.  

Similarly, a wholesale business in Poland is set up to support small stores there, as 40% of the shops are run by local businesses (at least in 2011, when I read the story ("The man who bet on tradition," Financial Times).

... For while many Poles were entranced by the prospect of choice and consumer plenty that the new shops offered – a stunning contrast to the empty shelves and shoddy goods that had been a hallmark of communism – many others remained loyal to the mom-and-pop shops that exist in every Polish neighbourhood. Those are the shops that Eurocash supplies with produce and other goods, often on a cash basis.

“We believed in the future of independent retail – that there will always be a space for small shops,” says Mr Amaral, who splits his time between Poznan in western Poland and his native Portugal.

... here are about 150,000 small shops in Poland, the highest number in the European Union, and of that about a third are family owned. In all, small shops make up 40 per cent of Poland’s retail food shops, while supermarkets, hypermarkets and discount shops have about 42 per cent of the market – a vastly different picture than in most other European countries, where big retailers dominate.

If we had wholesaler systems focused on providing items at good prices to small stores, then it could work.  Without that, it doesn't.  That's why you have chains like 7-11.

City owned groceries.  Are suggested for "food deserts."  It's a mistake.  First, because of the wholesale/pricing issue.  Second, because city governments usually lack the ability to be innovative and spry at the scale of a retail business.  Chicago was going to do it and stepped back ("A closer look at Mamdani's proposal for city-owned grocery stores," Chicago Tribune).  Zohran Mamdani has it as a campaign plank ("A closer look at Mamdani's proposal for city-owned grocery stores," Spectrum News).

A comment in the NYC article is off base. The person worked for Whole Foods and used the Department of Defense PX stores (commissary) as an example of nonprofit stores selling cheaply.  But the volume of these stores on military bases exceeds that of large scale supermarkets.  They may have free rent too.  Although the Pentagon wants to drop the business ("Pentagon wants out of the grocery business, asks industry for proposals," San Antonio Express-News).  From the article:

The department also will consider closing "all or a portion" of existing commissaries if a commercial chain has nearby stores that can offer the same 23.7% discount that the military markets provide.

Interesting, because for years low PX prices were a marketing point for enlistment.  But apparently, some of the low costs come from the Pentagon picking up back office costs like ordering. 

Small for profit businesses have a hard time.  So do nonprofits trying their hand at it ("Nonprofit grocery chain Daily Table to shut down operations," Boston Globe).

-- "Grocery stores in cities: the failure of the "15 minute grocery store"," 2023

Cities might be able to make a go of it if they band together and create a common brand, operations systems, and vendor relationships ("Why ask why? Because," 2007) to share across a network of small grocery stores in poor neighborhoods, where they would share the back office systems and negotiate a good or at least better product cost rate with a national food distributor.

Department stores as experiences. The Wall Street Journal has an article, "Can the French Reinvent America’s Broken Department-Store Model?," on the opening of a branch of the Paris-based Printemps department store in NYC.

Printemps New York is following the European department-store playbook of serving up enough food and drinks, exhibitions and other activities to keep shoppers occupied far beyond the fitting room. The store in Manhattan’s financial district was designed to evoke a luxurious Parisian residence. It more closely resembles a chic nightspot than it does a suburban Macy’s. The new store features an espresso cafe under a green-and-white circus tent, three other restaurants, hand-painted tiles, a champagne bar and spa chairs for mini-facials and head massages.

I think the article misses the point in that experience-based retail at the department store scale is limited to big cities/urban populations, at least in the US.

Department stores in the US have long since shifted to a more utilitarian model with limited pizzazz outside of NYC stores like Macy's and Bloomingdales.

What suburbanite is going to go to a suburban Macy's for a sit down meal, even if British department stores are known for exemplary food options, and when it was a great experience in the past (as a child I ate at the Hudson's restaurant, and on a road trip to Chicago during college, in Marshall Fields' restaurant).

Although apparently one of NYC's best Italian restaurants is in the Herald Square Macy's.

When Downtown department stores close, generally there is a loss in the range of retail experiences in the city.  But many people don't care because they aren't looking to shop so much as they are looking to buy quickly, and move on.

This is a point similar to that of corner stores in New York City neighborhoods.  They survive because of density.  Same with experience-oriented department stores.  They are unique.  A destination.  Appropriate for center cities but not likely to be successful in the suburbs.

Urban grocery stores round up

DC is overstored for grocery stores, at least west of the river, while supermarkets in the poorest area ("east of the river") are minimal.  There are so many stores that it's hard to find tenants for all the proposed spaces.  

The Washington Post article, " A developer promised a supermarket for a new neighborhood. Now it can’t deliver," describes how a developer in Greater Brookland wants to cut the size of a previously approved supermarket space by half--likely for a specialty grocer, like Sprouts, rather than a full line store like Safeway or Giant.

NYC proposes city-owned stores in "food deserts" ("New York might experiment with city-run grocery stores. How do they work?," Washington Post). Chicago has proposed something similar. I think that's insane.  Governments lack the capacity to run an operation like a supermarket which requires a lot of skill and ability to pivot--I think of DC's Eastern Market, under management by the local government real estate office as a perfect example because of their failure to act with alacrity.  

OTOH, some public markets like in Baltimore seem to be reasonably well managed.

In Seattle the large multi-store cooperative PCC has reopened a store it closed in Downtown, but with a much greater focus on grab and go and prepared foods ("PCC back in downtown Seattle with a smaller store and downsized ambitions," Seattle Times).

The PCC Corner Market, as it’s called, is roughly a third the size of its 20,000-square-foot predecessor, with a much narrower selection that the co-op hopes will outperform the original store, which closed less than two years after opening after lackluster sales. 

The new format, which focuses on deli, lunch and breakfast items, and lots of grab-and-go selections, essentially replicates what was generating most sales in the first store. Although that store’s deli did a brisk trade, it couldn’t cover the expenses of a full-sized store in the middle of downtown still missing much of its pre-pandemic workforce, Srinivasan said. “It just didn’t pencil.”

The new downtown format, by contrast, is tailored to a lunchtime worker-and tourist-crowd. There is a plethora sandwiches, hot pizza and a salad bar, but fewer dry goods and PCC staples like fresh produce and meat.

“I think this model makes a lot of sense,” added Maria Diamond, who works nearby, as she emerged from the store Tuesday. “I think the full store was a lot for this community to support.” PCC’s smaller format, its first, may also reflect moderating expectations for downtown recovery. In June, downtown worker foot traffic hit its highest level since March 2020, when COVID-19 emptied out downtown offices, but is still 66% of what it was in June 2019, according to cellphone data posted by the Downtown Seattle Association. PCC signed the lease for the original store in 2018.

(The Downtown Alliance) Rendering of a new building proposed at Salt Lake City's Pioneer Park, designed to house portions of the Downtown Farmers Market and activate the downtown green space year-round.

Salt Lake proposes a public market building at Pioneer Park ("Finally, a solution for Pioneer Park? SLC, Downtown Alliance to make it a year-round home for the farmers market," Salt Lake Tribune), home to one of the nation's best Saturday farmers markets held during the spring and summer, with an abbreviated winter market following.  

For the same reason that PCC shut their original store, customers wanting prepared foods, not foods they need to prepare. I don't think it will work.

Blocks downtown are big and a lot of the residential buildings are a ways away, so walking won't be that convenient.  

Another indicator of failure being more likely is that is food halls in Greater Downtown only have marginal success ("Food hall in SLC development closes after not getting enough customers, manager says," SLT).

The standalone location of Ruby Snaps cookies, which are sold from the shop and also wholesale.  Photo: Fransico Kjolseth.  Salt Lake Tribune).

For people not living downtown, they will have to pass dozens of grocery stores to get there--there are at least 20 supermarkets within a 3-5 mile radius of where we live plus lots of specialty stores (Hispanic, Middle Eastern, Indian, Japanese, Chinese). 

I do think a plan could work if focused on artisanal food producers like Ruby Snaps cookies ("Dough Girl's new name is a "Snap") or kolaches ("At this Sugar House spot, selling cupcakes then sandwiches then brownies have all failed. Here’s what’s next," SLT).  I say this as one standalone store focusing on brownies shut down about a year ago.

I understand the need for activation, but this isn't the solution.  I do think it could be okay on the day that the farmers market operates, but that's for a few Saturdays per year.

A kind of salvage store chain in Boston, focused on providing lower cost food for lower income patrons shut down ("Local nonprofit grocery store chain Daily Table to close all locations," WGBH/NPR).

Daily Table, a nonprofit local grocery chain in Boston, Cambridge and Salem, is closing its four locations in the coming days. With federal cuts to hunger relief programs, along with the rising prices of food and other challenges dating back to the COVID-19 pandemic, its board of directors decided to shutter the remaining locations after shrinking its footprint earlier this year.

“It’s a very sad day for us because for 10 years we’ve been able to serve communities,” Doug Rauch, Daily Table’s founder and chair of the board of directors, told GBH News. “They counted on us for truly affordable fresh fruits and vegetables — and not just fresh fruits, vegetables, but prepared meals, too.”

For the past 10 years, Daily Table has served neighborhoods across Greater Boston by working alongside each community to make affordable, nutritious food accessible to all. More than three million customers went to the grocery stores, the board of directors wrote in an email to customers.

Also see: 

-- "Grocery stores in cities: the failure of the "15 minute grocery store"," (2023)
-- "Eastern Market DC's 150th anniversary last weekend | And my unrealized master plan for the market," (2023)

Grocery stores in cities: the failure of the "15 minute grocery store"

For the last few years, the concept of the "15 minute city" has been touted, the idea that you can meet most of your needs in a 15 minute walkshed--a radius of about three quarters of a mile ("How '15-minute cities' will change the way we socialise," BBC).

Conceptually, I think it's a great approach, especially in terms of the urban design, placemaking, concentration and communitarian elements, and the provision of the necessary transit levels of service to backstop it. 

But it doesn't work in terms of how the retail sector and the delivery of entertainment at the local scale is organized, especially for grocery stores and pharmacies. 

Sure you could have corner stores. Then again, I was looking at a convenience store yesterday wrt testimony I'm preparing for a matter in Salt Lake City, and they were selling milk for $6.09 per gallon, when it's about $3.50 at supermarkets. 

From a retail standpoint, the 15 minute city works best in dense very high income areas.

Photo: Trent Nelson, Salt Lake Tribune.

Salt Lake.  Last fall, less than two years after opening, a small grocery store closed in the Marmalade district of Salt Lake, on the city's near westside ("Lee’s Market to close its 400 West location in Salt Lake City on Friday," Salt Lake Tribune).  

Lee's Marketplace was opened by a small supermarket group that is a member of the Associated Food Stores cooperative.  They operate a number of regularly sized stores outside of Salt Lake City proper.

This store, on the ground floor of an apartment building, was small, but well stocked, and the firm extended sales prices on featured items to this store as well--many companies that have a mix of larger and smaller stores don't extend special pricing to the small stores.  

It opened just before covid and that stunted it ("Salt Lake City’s Marmalade neighborhood get its first grocery store in decades," SLT).

Salt Lake also has the Harmon's chain, which is upscale and has three stores, one in the city, that are significantly smaller than a traditional supermarket.  There is another firm, the Corner Store, which has two small stores in the area, with a branch nearby in the Gateway development.

There are other mainline (large) supermarkets nearby--within a couple miles, including Smith's owned by Kroger, Lucky's, a Rancho--Hispanic, and the Downtown Harmon's, which is an exquisite store--smaller than a normal store, but large enough, with premier bakery, meat, and seafood departments, along with a cooking school, grill for eat-in, and other features, a form of which are present in most of the other Harmon's locations.  Plus the area isn't that far from the corridor with a Target, Walmart, Costco, and a restaurant supply store open to the public.

Even though the Lee's was outside of our neighborhood, we shopped there occasionally because it is a couple blocks from the house of close friends.

People commented that the store closed because rents must have increased, or because of shoplifting from students at West High School across the street.

I responded, it's obvious they didn't have enough business and that's why they closed.  From the article:

Badger wrote that the “decision to close the store is the result of the lack of volume coming into the store from the surrounding areas, the COVID-19 pandemic, and public accessibility.”

The market was employing “the urban store format you would find a high-density city like, New York, Chicago, or Boston was a test for our company,” Badger wrote. “Unfortunately, we found this style of shopping is not yet conducive to the Salt Lake City area.”

First, even though the immediate neighborhood didn't have a supermarket, it's not like people didn't eat, and therefore, already had relationships with existing grocers.  So the market needed to do ongoing, serious marketing.  I was thinking back to when I was a child in Detroit 50+ years ago--back then, stores didn't insert weekly circulars in the local newspapers, they delivered them door-to-door.  Lee's probably needed to do something like that. 

Second, the store wasn't particularly well located.  The neighborhood has a nascent commercial district, although it's disjoint and not set up for success from an urban design standpoint, and that's not where the Lee's was located.

Third, opened in anticipation of lots of new multiunit buildings and residents, the construction and renting of such units hasn't moved fast enough to boost the patronage of Lee's, if people even knew they were there.

Basically, to survive Lee's needed minimal even zero rent for years, until the customer base built up to the point where the store could survive.

As it is, I am amazed at how many grocery stores there are here, in part a function maybe of people eating in more than the national average.  There are 20 grocery stores within a five mile radius of where we live, and even more slightly outside that distance.  Including ethnic and specialty stores, major discounters, a restaurant supply store that sells to the public, etc.  So many more options than we had in DC (although I do miss Aldi).

Lesson: as much as people like me advocate for expanded urban grocery options, the reality is that to make stores work requires a lot to go right.  And this is true in all of the other examples below.

Wrigleys was one of the supermarkets that existed during my childhood in Detroit.  Except for Kroger, based in Cincinnati, all those stores--Wrigleys, Packers, Great Scott, Chatham, Farmer Jack's--have closed.

The kind of intense door to door marketing I remember from my childhood is necessary these days to alert area residents that a store even exists, given that most people don't read local newspapers and other forms of local media that would inform them that such a store exists.

Salt Lake Food Coop initiative.  Similarly, for a number of years, at least five, there's been an effort to  create a food coop in the city.  I don't see how it can succeed given the high level of grocery store penetration and the failure of small artisan food businesses here ("Small businesses closing in Salt Lake," KSL).    Although an issue with the food businesses is the rising cost of ingredients.

Interestingly, there already is a cooperative in suburban Murray, I don't see why they aren't working on just opening a branch in the city.

Like with the Good Food stores mentioned below, from the outset, food cooperatives tend to focused on a niche audience.  That being said the success of cooperatives in Minneapolis-St. Paul, and the upscale Coopertunity Market in Culver City ("Revisiting Takoma Junction and the Takoma Co-op development issue | A chance to start over") shows success is possible.  

Richmond, Virginia: Market @25th is unprofitable too, but has a deep pocketed investor.

I think I've mentioned the small for profit market, Market@25th in Richmond, created by a philanthropist.

Like the stores in DC and Salt Lake, it's part of a mixed use development.  And like the DC example, it's part of an urban revitalization effort.

It's a social enterprise-like store, but it's funded by a philanthropist, with the aim of being profitable ("Richmond’s Market At 25th Shaped By History, Needs Of Church Hill Residents," Virginia Public Media).  

Which is a good thing because it's lost tons of money ("Church Hill's new grocery store has lost millions in 6 months, but owners are committed to 'the market with a mission'," Richmond Times-Dispatch).  From the article:

[Steve] Markel, vice chairman of the Henrico County-based specialty insurer Markel Corp., and his wife, Kathie, announced in 2016 that they would bankroll the construction of a grocery store in the city’s East End.

The area is home to some of the city’s poorest families. Residents have lower life expectancies than in wealthier parts of the city, a disparity Markel said necessitated investment aimed at improving health outcomes.

To that end, Markel helped finance the mixed-use development at 25th Street and Nine Mile Road. It includes 42 apartments, retail and office space and a new culinary school that J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College plans to open in 2020.

The 25,000-square-foot grocery store is the centerpiece of what Markel said this past spring was a “philanthropic” venture.

“The grocery store is really a symbol of creating a healthy neighborhood and a vibrant neighborhood,” he said. “Not only was it about food and vegetables and fruit, it was about jobs.”

If the store were fully nonprofit, or super undecapitalized, it's likely that it would have closed.  Typically, nonprofits don't have the funding to be able to make it through the long period of losses before profitability is attained.

Oakland, California.  Last year, an independent community grocery store closed on the Westside of Oakland ("Why West Oakland’s only full-service grocery store closed after less than 3 years," Oaklandside).  

It was undercapitalized and didn't have enough business to sustain the slow period of growth associated with opening.  Like for the Lee's, the pandemic provided extra hurt.

Photo: Michelle Gomez, DCist/WAMU-NPR.

Washington, DC.  Good Food Market stops selling unprepared food ("Good Food Markets Closes Ward 8 Grocery Store As It Pivots To Prepared Food," DCist).  

Over the years, the nonprofit Good Food Market has opened stores in DC and Prince George's County ("Good Food Markets Open Location in Prince George’s County," Washington Informer), including in DC's Anacostia neighborhood ("Mayor Bowser Celebrates Grand Opening of Good Food Markets in Ward 8," press release).  

They've just stopped selling groceries and are only selling prepared foods, defeating the purpose of opening stores in so called food deserts, as prepared foods cost a lot more than perishable and nonperishable food stuffs.

Opening stores in low income communities.  Many years ago, I wrote this, "In lower income neighborhoods, are businesses supposed to be "community organizations" first?" (2012), in response to an earlier failure of a grocery store attempt in DC's East of the River, by the area's Yes Market Natural Grocery group. 

FWIW, I am an advocate of social enterprise focused efforts in such communities, but they need to be well capitalized and it must be understood that achieving profitability will be very difficult.

Grocery shopping routines.  One of the problems with how advocates think about grocery shopping is they forget that we eat every day.  While it may suck to have to travel to a store, most people have developed patterns and practices of food shopping to accommodate their needs and situations.

Just because a store opens doesn't mean that people change their shopping patterns to patronize it.  And in a city like DC, it may make more sense to provide shuttle services to residents in understored areas to be able to go to the stores in nearby areas--for example on H Street, primarily in NE DC, in a two mile distance, albeit some off the corridor, there is a Walmart, Giant, Whole Foods, Safeway, Aldi, Trader Joes, Harris-Teeter, Streets--an independent upscale market, and a market district.

Rather than funding an undercapitalized minimarket, sometimes, at least initially maybe just provide shuttle services to existing grocery stores?

Revisiting older writings on the success of independent retail and neighborhood commercial districts

Sitting in the car at 15th and 15th earlier today ("Thinking about the opportunities for success with neighborhood commercial districts: comparing Manor Park in DC to 15th and 15th in Salt Lake"), I was thinking about my experiences around 2006-2008, when serving as a Main Street program manager in the Brookland neighborhood of DC (near Catholic University, with 12th Street NE as the spine of the commercial district) and in 2008, doing commercial district revitalization studies in Pittsburgh and the small town of Brunswick, Georgia.

The failure of some businesses in Brookland--seized by "opponents" to the Main Street program as proof of failure--as well as reviewing conditions in the Strip District, Lawrenceville, Penn Avenue Arts District, East Liberty, and Shadyside commercial districts in Pittsburgh led me to write three blog entries which still read quite well.

-- "The "soft side" of commercial district competition" (2006) jumps off from the concept of the Reilly Law of Retail Gravitation which I summarize as "people choose to shop at places with more and better stores."  

Retailers, especially independent businesses, need to think more broadly about both their business and their place as part of a commercial district, and they need to focus on those elements of the commercial district that influence perceptions of potential patrons.  From the article:

As long as a particular urban commercial district is deficient compared to nearby shopping alternatives, it won't be able to attract new customers, until it starts providing some decent options. You can put any kind of sugar coating on it that you want, but it's these factors that must be addressed: 

1. the quality and condition of the buildings
2. the cleanliness of the street and sidewalks
3. the condition of the street furniture, treeboxes and other aspects of the physical environment
4. the signage and windows of the businesses 
5. the quality and organization of the store interiors.

Points 4 and 5 aren't about the broader commercial district, but factors directly under the purview of the business owners, and I expanded on those elements in later entries.

-- "Why ask why? Because" (2007) was a response to criticism of the Main Street program when some businesses failed on the Brookland commercial corridor.  The point I made was that business failure needs to be understood not merely a declarative statement, and that a business support program can only do so much.  

The article outlines what a journal article called "retail mixes" but what I prefer to call retail store subsystems (using the concept of organizational subsystems as discussed in Social Psychology of Organizations by Katz and Kahn).    To the three mixes outlined in the article:

• goods and services
• communications
• physical distribution

I added:

• store operations

with the aim of helping retailers create more robust and successful business concepts and models.  The reason that the stores failed in Brookland had to do with weak systems and business models mostly, but also some certain stores needing a larger customer base (a/k/a "retail trade areas") than was proximate in the neighborhood.   From the entry:

The Rosenbloom article discusses the Trade Area Mix, linking broad market demand to the possibility of store (and commercial district) success: 

1. Trade Area Geography: the geographical extent of the trade area
2. Trade Area Demand: the level of consumer demand within the geographically delineated trade area
3. Trade Area Heterogeneity: the mix of consumer market segments within the trade area and the diversity of consumer demand for products and services. The greater the demand, the higher degree of heterogeneity, characterized by more offerings.

When someone says "That store closed, the X commercial district is a terrible place to do business," the reality is a lot more complicated. Was it the owner [and management]? The concept? The commercial district? The property? Access to capital? 

And it's not either/or, it can be and/and/and... For example, the Brookland commercial district has some significant spatial and access issues. Just like I write about "intra city sprawl," commercial districts need to ensure intensity and critical mass.

-- "Indepependent retail businesses can succeed and thrive" (2008) outlines elements of robust retail business concepts and identity systems, extending concepts laid out in Designing Brand Identity.  (Although this table is updated, from the 2009 blog entry, "Retail and Restaurant Check Up Surveys.")

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Principles for creating complete concepts/identity systems for retail businesses*

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

Overall

• Understand the needs, preferences, habits, and aspirations of the target audience. 

• Experience and study the competition and learn from their successes and failures. 

• Understand traffic flow, the volume of business, and economic considerations of your location. 

• Create an experience and environment that makes it easy for customers to buy, and that inspires them to come back again and again. 

• Good design sells. It is a competitive advantage. Design is systems and processes, not just graphics. 

• A disciplined, coherent approach leads to a unified and powerful brand presence. 

• Create a distinct position and complete identity for your store/concept. 

Facade/Exterior

• The storefront is a mass communications medium that works 24/7 and can attract new customers, influence purchasing decisions, and increase sales. 

• Logo and signage expresses the brand and builds on understanding the needs and habits of users in the environment. 

• Exterior signage must consider both vehicular and pedestrian traffic. 

Interior

• Design an interior space that is sustainable, durable, easy to maintain and clean, and is energy efficient.

• Consider the dimensions of space: visual, auditory, olfactory, tactile, and thermal. 

• Understand the psychological effect of light and lighting sources. 

• Align merchandising strategies with displays, advertising, and sales strategies. 

• The shelf is the most competitive marketing environment that exists. 

• Consider the needs of handicapped customers and those of different ages. 

Service/Business operations

• Consider all operational needs so that the store delivers on the brand promise. 

• Create an environment that helps the sales force sell and makes it easy to complete a transaction. 

• Align the quality and speed of service with the experience of the environment. 

• Benchmark the quality and speed of service against the competition. 

Plan for the future

• Anticipate future growth. 

• Measure, evaluate, change. 

• Constantly ask: is the message clear?; is the content accessible?; is the experience positive? 

Small Business Saturday

That American Express, a big corporation which mostly makes its money from big corporations, is the sponsor of Small Business Saturday, which focuses on independent businesses, is ironic and illustrates the contradictions in the American economy.

We laud independent businesses.  But we promote and support bigness.

Independent businesses often focus on providing artisanal goods, but such goods are more expensive, usually being produced with a lot more labor, and at the same time, our consumer economy is focused on buying a lot, but at the lowest cost.

In business there is the line: "Price, Quality, Speed: pick any two."  With a focus on price, independent business in terms of production and sales is usually the loser.

Furthering the contradictions, as part of its focus on Small Business Saturday, American Express has produced a set of videos focusing on small businesses, called "Saving Main."  The first one is on a clothing-focused store in Oakland, California, called OwlNWood.


Interestingly, while most of the economic changes--especially housing production and the attraction of higher income residents (because they can't afford to live in San Francisco) in Oakland are likely to benefit her ability to sell more product, it could affect her ability to stay in the same location if rents rise/she doesn't own the property. 

And in the video she mentions specifically how her local supplier for custom sewing, a small manufacturer, is likely to be displaced as higher value property uses replace industrial uses.

Her business closes.

But to me, not covered in the video, the issue is likely more than the changes in Oakland, although yes, they are an issue, but more about the commercial district and its foot traffic, and possibly the way that the store is managed.

Shifting to Salt Lake mostly, before moving we joked about opening an apparel, gift, and coffee shop, based on the way a couple stores in DC work.

Coffee bar at the back of the Modern General Store by Sylvester & Company in Savannah.   (This branch has closed but I think it would have worked in a more walking, less touristy district, in a community with a bigger population.  The company still has a store on Long Island, albeit in the tourist destination of Sag Harbor.)

But besides SLC being 1/3 the size of DC, the reality is that this is an automobile-centric community, not transit-walking based like many neighborhoods in DC, which was the model for the business concept.

(Other models are a couple stores in Hampden in Baltimore and in Savannah, where a bunch of stores--books, apparel and gifts, housewares--also incorporate coffee shops, which is a great element because as I say "people eat and drink every day, but they don't buy a shirt or book every day..."  More recently, the Shop Made in DC store which was on Dupont Circle had a cafe.)

So I am skeptical that the concept could work (or at least, I feel more confident about doing such a store in a walking district), unless we get the absolutely right space, and place, and rent, and publicity able to attract customers who have to consciously make the decision to visit, as opposed to stopping in while walking home from the transit station.

That being said, there are a fair amount of independent businesses here.

And they do succeed in the context of an automobile-centric community.

It's important to distinguish the characteristics a business needs in order to be successful.

The general belief is that an apparel shop like OwlNWood can't succeed in a small commercial district, they need to be located in a larger, more regionally serving district--that can still be a traditional commercial district, the big issue is being able to draw on a much larger customer base.

There are exceptions though.  And it's important to know why those exceptions work.

-- "Why ask why? Because," 2007
-- "Retail and restaurant check up surveys," 2009
-- "Indepependent retail businesses can succeed and thrive," 2008
-- "Critical analysis and critical analysis of retail, communities, etc.," 2014
-- "Little room for error: small retail business in general and in DC in particular," 2019

A couple that I've come across in my work are Pavement in the Lawrenceville District in Pittsburgh and Willow on Upshur Street in DC.

I wrote down my 12 lessons from Willow, but those notes are boxed away somewhere.

For Willow, it's key that the store has an ever changing inventory of clothes that are competitively priced (constantly changing means that if you don't buy it when you first see it it might not be there when you return), is neighborhood-anchored, but also on the walking route to and from transit--both bus and subway, and that the owner lives in the neighborhood, and has developed what I call "a brigade", that is a group of fans, mostly neighborhood residents but not exclusively, who stop by to shop frequently.  The store also supports and develops events both for the store and the commercial district.

This is key.  My Manor Park DC neighborhood has a little one block shopping district on the 6200 block of 3rd St. NW and there are three clothing stores there--a hat shop, a boutique, and a consignment store.

All do great window displays.

But by contrast to Willow--which also does great window displays--few people walk in Manor Park, and the displays are wasted.

Pavement is in a more widely known commercial district, but it isn't a setting with a lot of foot traffic.  So there has to be constant promotion in order to attract customers.  Although 10 years later when I first came across it, Lawrenceville has more than come into its own.

Trying to figure out why Pavement was an exception to the rule about apparel retail I read Designing Brand Identity which led to this table:

Principles for creating complete concepts/identity systems for independent retail businesses*

• Understand the needs, preferences, habits, and aspirations of the target audience.
• Good design sells. It is a competitive advantage. Design is systems and processes, not just graphics.
• A disciplined, coherent approach leads to a unified and powerful brand presence.
• Create a distinct position and complete identity for your store/concept.
• Experience and study the competition and learn from their successes and failures.
• Understand traffic flow, the volume of business, and economic considerations of your location.
• The storefront is a mass communications medium that works 24/7 and can attract new customers, influence purchasing decisions, and increase sales.
• Logo and signage expresses the brand and builds on understanding the needs and habits of users in the environment.
• Exterior signage must consider both vehicular and pedestrian traffic.
• Design an interior space that is sustainable, durable, easy to maintain and clean, and is energy efficient.
• Consider the dimensions of space: visual, auditory, olfactory, tactile, and thermal.
• Understand the psychological effect of light and lighting sources.
• Consider the needs of handicapped customers and those of different ages.
• The shelf is the most competitive marketing environment that exists.
• Align merchandising strategies with displays, advertising, and sales strategies.
• Create an experience and environment that makes it easy for customers to buy, and that inspires them to come back again and again.
• Create an environment that helps the sales force sell and makes it easy to complete a transaction.
• Align the quality and speed of service with the experience of the environment.
• Benchmark the quality and speed of service against the competition.
• Consider all operational needs so that the store delivers on the brand promise.
• Anticipate future growth. Measure, evaluate, change. Constantly ask: is the message clear?; is the content accessible?; is the experience positive?

* This table was built from the section on "creating touchpoints" from Designing Brand Identity (second edition) by Alina Wheeler

(Social media barely existed when I produced that table.  It's a necessary addition now.)

---

By contrast the Hampden district in Baltimore and Carytown in Richmond are regional destinations in that they are known for providing a wide range of independently run retail businesses.

So even though those communities are automobile-centric, those districts are destinations.

In "Little room for error: small retail business in general and in DC in particular," I listed 11 reasons why small retail businesses can fail:

1. Rents are too high relative to sales.
2. Property taxes for retail space are too high generally and in neighborhood commercial districts specifically.
3. Size of the market.
4. Too much retail space overall.
5. Constant addition of new retail districts and space to the city's footprint and inventory of space. (WRT restaurants, there are some articles about the number of restaurants closing in DC, including the Washington City Paper article "What Are the Warning Signs That Your Favorite Restaurant Is About to Close?." Many chalk it up to there being too many restaurants relative the market. They didn't mention the number of "new" destination districts in the city such as the Wharf, Navy Yard, and Union Market.)
6. Consolidation and chaining of the retail industry.
7. Competition/Fit of the business model/lack of robust concept and operations model.
8. The impact of e-commerce.
9. Location (both generally and whether or not a particular location is a good fit for a particular business -- e.g., waterfront districts seem to be better for food and beverage and not so great for retail).
10. Lack of a good commercial district marketing and coordination mechanism (the original list uses different wording, referring to DC's failure to have a differentiated set of commercial district revitalization approaches that can fitted to the conditions and needs of particular districts), especially ongoing marketing.  Also see "The "soft side" of commercial district competition"
11. Store sizes are too big relative to sales.

Shopping local during the holidays: Small Business Saturday and beyond

---

-- "Mass consumerism is destroying our planet. This Black Friday, let’s take a stand," Guardian
From the article:

Today, in austerity Britain (and, yes, for all the talk of spending promises, austerity is still here), the idea of excessive consumerism seems to have lost much of its resonance. Memories of consumerism and easy credit seem to have become tainted by the recession. Academics have observed how Britons felt ashamed of their pre-crash consumerism and (wrongly) felt personally accountable for the austerity that followed, identifying particular consumer objects – such as expensive tracksuits and conservatories – as symptomatic of a flaw in the national character.

For many consumers, shopping has become mixed with guilt and a sense of responsibility as it increasingly depends on credit card debt and the labour of poorly paid and precarious workers – and it has a heavy environmental toll. Buying something today is also an experience drained of fun: it often entails making sure you are in when the package arrives, unpacking it and realising that it isn’t what you wanted.

Not in the U.S. But it should. And more people are cutting back. If you are going to buy stuff, why not make choices on what and where you buy in order to have more economic impact locally?

-- "Before you jump on the sales train, ask yourself: do you need this?," Guardian

---

The holiday shopping season is touched off by so called "Black Friday," the day after Thanksgiving.

Although plenty of stores open on Thanksgiving, although some companies remain holdouts.  And many others are starting their holiday promotions earlier and earlier ("What Does ‘Black Friday’ Even Mean Anymore?," New York Times.; "‘Everything is always marked down’: Black Friday has become just another day of sales," Washington Post).

The big chains offer lots of deal busters to get shoppers in stores, and over the past few years stores have been opening earlier and earlier, including no longer waiting til Friday and opening on Thanksgiving.

Promotion of independent commercial districts and stores can be a hit or miss phenomenon.  Some retailers are good marketers, many are not.

The "Main Street commercial district revitalization approach" was developed to bring new resources to commercial districts, beyond that which are normally possessed by the typical business owner.

An example of a national program designed to promote small business, but that is realized only if local businesses and commercial districts organize to leverage it is Small Business Saturday.

The event was created a few years ago by the American Independent Business Alliance, the group that actively promotes the "Shop Local" movement,.to promote holiday shopping at local and independently owned businesses, as opposed to how most holiday shopping is focused on big box stores and national chains,

Museum Store Sunday/Cyber Monday/Giving Tuesday.  Other "interest groups" have jumped on the bandwagon and have developed companion days riffing off Black Friday.

E-commerce retail aims to make the Monday after Thanksgiving their biggest shopping day of the season and year, calling it Cyber Monday, which now has greater sales volume than Black Friday.

Nonprofit organizations promote receiving fundraising donations on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, Giving Tuesday.

A few years ago, the Museum Store Association created Museum Store Sunday.  Definitely there are exemplary museum stores such as the MoMA Design Store, the National Building Museum's gift shop, the book sections at museums like the National Gallery.  Since people don't think of museum gift shops outside of visiting a museum's galleries, it makes sense to do a promotional event ("Museum Store Sunday fills shopping gap no one knew they had" and ""Museum Store Sunday: Shop small businesses off the beaten holilday path," USA Today).

Small Business Saturday.  For the past few years, the event has been sponsored by American Express, which originally offered inducements to card members as an incentive to shop local on that day.

They continue to put a lot of money into marketing, advertising, and promotional support.

That affiliation with American Express was too corporate for Takoma Park's Old Takoma Business Association, which created its own parallel event but without signing on to the American Express effort.


The economic value of shopping locally.  Research results are piling up demonstrating the thesis that spending money in stores based locally has greater economic benefit than shopping in chain stores, which buy few services locally (excepting labor) and don't spend profits locally.

See "Economic impact of locally owned hardware stores vs. big box stores," which discusses an economic impact study done by the North American Retail Hardware Association, which also produced "shop local" holiday promotional materials for this holiday season.

Reminders to shop local are necessary.  A big campaign promoting shopping at independently owned stores and in traditional, usually town-city based shopping districts as opposed to shopping malls, reminds people that spending money at locally-owned stores is important.

The reality is, with so many other marketing messages, people need to be educated and reminded.

Hopefully, the kind of inducement previously offered by American Express to their cardholders isn't required.

I think this is likely to be the case, because so many other retailers and independent shopping districts are now participating in the program, and marketing to consumer bases that goes beyond the segment comprised of American Express credit card holders.

Still, as traditional commercial districts begin skewing their mix of businesses and attractions to food and drink, it becomes harder to "shop locally" at the neighborhood scale, but more possible for "regionally serving small business districts."

By that I mean places with a strong representation of quality independent shops selling goods, like Manayunk or South Street in Philadelphia, Carytown in Richmond, Hampden in Baltimore, to some extent Alexandria, Virginia in the DC area, although many commercial districts have some retail outlets that people can still visit--it might be reconditioned or resale of goods stores though.

The North Park commercial district in San Diego has a great gateway sign.  San Diego funds business improvement efforts with the equivalent of a BID assessment, but many of the programs are organized as "Main Street" programs, which are more volunteer-based groups compared to staff-driven "downtown" associations driven by property owners.

One example of how a county business promotion division is using "Small Business Saturday" as a way to promote its businesses and business districts is Macomb County, Michigan.  See "Macomb County Shops Make Big Deal of Small Business Saturday," C&G Newspapers.

Signboard listing holiday events in Takoma Park's Old Town Takoma commercial district.  

Holiday marketing beyond Small Business Saturday. Many community business districts have figured out the holiday season, providing a large number of events and activities in a coordinated fashion.  And they market these events as part of a comprehensive calendar.

Line up of Holiday Events, 12/2018, Main Street Takoma Park, Maryland

In the DC region, Fredericksburg, Virginia, Frederick, Maryland, and Takoma Park, Maryland do a particularly good job.

In the Petworth neighborhood of DC, this year marks the 14th edition of the Upshur Street Crafts Fair on  Saturday December 1st.  (Last year they did it two weekends in a row, I guess that didn't work out.)

Artisans sell items from booths on the street, and retail stores and restaurants participate as well. 

For the few years, the Friends of the Petworth Library have held a book sale at the library in conjunction with the event too.  That's a particular smart example of leveraging existing events for other purposes, "latching on" and extending the value of the event by adding complementary activities.

Holiday Markets.  More cities are sponsoring holiday markets, modeled after the famous Christmas markets in Germany.  DC has its Downtown Holiday Market, on F Street between 7th and 9th Streets NW, next to the Smithsonian Museums there.  Baltimore has created a similar event.  Although I will say that a city needs to have a reasonably large population to make such an event work.

Hanukah.  The Jewish holiday of Hanukah isn't a gift-oriented holiday, although gift giving has become an element of it because of how the event and religion exists alongside other traditions.

More communities are recognizing that religious traditions other than Christian need to be better acknowledged when planning such activities.

NYC lights a menorah each year in Manhattan, billed as the "World's Largest Menorah," during the week long "Festival of Lights" in early December.

(Because of DC being the National Capital there are National Christmas Tree Lighting and Menorah Lighting events, but they don't have ramifications for stoking retail buying in traditional commercial districts.)

Getting vendor/purveyor participation in Restaurant Week promotions: San Diego, January 20th - 27th, 2019

When I was in Southern California last month, I noticed a food service truck on a highway somewhere in Los Angeles County, with a "banner ad" on the side, promoting San Diego's upcoming Restaurant Week, January 20th-27th.

City-wide Restaurant Weeks aim to increase business during slower times of the year ("‘Restaurant Week’ sales uptick averages 23 percent," Restaurant Hospitality).

Usually they do this with a prix fixe type of deal, two courses at lunch, three at dinner, for a set price.

Ideally, the restaurants come up with follow on marketing activities to encourage participating patrons to return sooner rather than later, for full-priced meals ("8 Tips to Increase Revenue with a Restaurant Week Menu," Upserve Restaurant Insider).

In the DC area, a Black Restaurant Week has been developed.

And various commercial districts, not just in DC, often create their own district-specific promotion around a restaurant or "Taste of" positioning, which I think is a good way to boost awareness and business too.

-- Taste of Eighth, Barracks Row Main Street

In fact, this is something I need to add as an element to my body of work on "Richard Rules for Restaurant-Based Revitalization."

The truck signage for the San Diego Restaurant Week impressed me for a couple reasons.

First, it's creative and out-of-home and will reach different audiences than that from newspapers, tv, and radio stories, as well as from social media. Although I like how this Baltimore Business Journal article ("A by-the-neighborhood tour of Baltimore City Restaurant Week, starting Friday") organizes coverage of the event by neighborhood.

Second, it's a way for vendors to the industry to contribute and participate in the program, a form of business-to-business marketing and support that in turn helps them and their restaurant business customers.

====
Thanks to McFarlane Promotions, acting on behalf of San Diego Restaurant Week and the San Diego Chapter of the California Restaurant Association for providing truck photographs.

Little room for error: small retail business in general and in DC in particular

Last week, Washington Post writer Paul Schwartzman had a piece, "Amid prosperity, D.C.'s independent retailers struggle to survive," on the seeming increase in failure of small retail businesses in the city.

Years ago, I took him around (actually, he wore me out) to look at popups -- third floors on traditional rowhouse buildings -- for a story.

And later he interviewed me for a story he wrote about the impact of property assessment rates ("Feeling the Pinch Of D.C.'s Prosperity"), something I had been agitating about for years. I stopped testifying about after awhile after realizing that Councilmembers didn't really care to understand why the problem existed.

-- "Avoiding the real problem with DC's property tax assessment methodologies," 2007
-- "Testimony -- Historic Neighborhood Retail Business Property Tax Relief Act," 2006
-- "Forcing Displacement by the disconnection of tax assessment models from public policy goals," 2005
-- "Displacement of retail businesses through increasing property tax assessments," 2005
-- "Revisiting the issue of neighborhood commercial district property tax methodologies," 2013

After Paul's 2007 article, I had a letter to the editor about it, re-emphasizing the point about the disconnect between property values, therefore tax rates, and the value of properties in terms of their revenue capacity in terms of sales/square foot.

My letter in the Post from July 25, 2007

Tax Policy Hurts D.C.'s Local Businesses 

A July 20 Metro Article ["Feeling the Pinch of D.C.'s Prosperity: Small Businesses Cry Out for Relief From Rapid Rise in Property Taxes"] inadequately explained why tax assessments are rising for small commercial property owners in the District.

Regardless of buildings' locations and use, the D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue values commercial buildings as if they could be converted into downtown office buildings. If the purpose is to turn the entire city over to office buildings and retail chains, then this property tax assessment methodology is working.

The market for downtown property is not local; it involves national and international developers, lenders, and portfolio investors. The market for small-footprint buildings in neighborhood commercial districts is local--in terms of property owners, investors, tenants, sales potential and rents. The solution is simple: differentiated tax assessment methods.

The legislative focus on property tax abatements or tax caps fails to address this fact.

As a result, locally owned businesses will continue to close or relocate to the suburbs, while more and more of the retail identity and uniqueness of the District is lost and the city's retail landscape becomes reshaped into yet another mall, albeit outdoors, featuring national brands.

But while I think the fact that DC commercial retail rents are too high, and that commercial property tax rates -- shaped by the fact that the Central Business District is a national-international real estate market, which reprices value beyond local considerations, and this ends up shaping the value of commercial property across the city, whether or not the commercial district is a part of the national or international real estate market -- independent store owners have other problems.

For example, Dupont Circle and Cleveland Park properties are often owned by national firms, whereas properties Downtown, Georgetown, and Friendship Heights involve both national and international firms.

Years ago, in the entry "Why ask why? Because," I discussed store operations in terms of various "mixes."  But it's about more than that.  Here's what I think is a more comprehensive list of the conditions faced by independent businesses:

1.  Rents are too high relative to sales.  The metric is that a business should pay no more than 4% to 10% of gross revenue in rent, although restaurants pay up to 15%.  In malls and large commercial buildings owned by major firms, after a certain point, tenants also pay out as rent a portion of total revenue.

Based on a calculation of estimated sales per square foot, you can figure out the gross revenue potential of a space, and calculate what the rent "should be" on that basis.

-- "Cleveland Park Retail: My off-hand evaluation, the rents are too high," 2009
-- "Commercial retail rents #2," 2009

At best, a store has a gross profit of 20% before taxes.  Paying more than 10% of gross revenue in rent pretty much wipes out profit.

(2.  Property taxes for retail space are too high generally and in neighborhood commercial districts specifically.)

3.  Size of the Market.  DC isn't that big, about 700,000 residents.  The number varies, but the average resident supports up to 7.5 s.f. of retail space.

Yes, the daytime population swells, but office workers have a very limited range of stuff that they buy, mostly prepared meals, and convenience goods.  A number I've used for years, derived from an economic research firm, said the average office worker supports 2 s.f. of retail and 5 s.f. of quick service food.  Although in the DC context, one study for the SW Ecodistrict found that about two-thirds of federal workers bring their lunch.

Tourists add to the mix, but mostly spend on food and lodging, and some retail.  The lines at Georgetown Cupcake or the busy restaurants at Washington Harbor in Georgetown when often the food isn't that great, demonstrates the value of tourism to retail and restaurant spending in DC.

People in line at Georgetown Cupcake.  Flickr photo by Robby Virus.

4.  Too much retail space overall.  With that 7.5 s.f/resident metric, DC can support upwards of 5 million square feet of retail space + some calculation for the spending by daytime office workers and districts.

There is much more retail space than that in the city.  E.g. on 14th Street and H Street NE likely there is more than one million s.f. in each place.

Nationally this is the case too, especially vis a vis the impact of e-commerce.  The US has 4x the retail space per person as the UK or other countries.  That's why so many chains are going under, or closing stores.

5.  Constant addition of new retail districts and space to the city footprint.  While in some respects the city is under-stored compared to the suburbs, the addition of new retail districts like The Wharf , Navy Yard, City Center in Downtown, and Ivy City puts pressure on existing districts, without there necessarily being a commensurate increase in the overall customer base.  Granted some of this space serves regional markets and tourist segments and isn't fully dependent on DC residents for success.

(Some of this space is sold on the belief that because it's located on commuter routes out of the city it will draw non-resident shoppers, but for the most part, most shoppers do their shopping nearer to home and not as part of work trips.)

Similarly, the impact of re/new/ed entertainment districts such as H Street or Ivy City puts pressure on existing districts like Adams-Morgan or Georgetown.

New retail space at the Sonnet mixed use building on the 1400 block north side of U Street NW, Washington, DC.

Every new mixed use building adds more supply to the retail space inventory.  But it just isn't in big new districts as greyfield developments..  It's in most every place where new "mixed use" buildings are created, with retail on the ground floor.  For example, this new building on the 1400 block of U Street NW is in place of a parking structure.  It adds housing above, but new retail on the ground floor, where none had previously existed.  While you can argue it will help strengthen the U Street streetscape, tying together north and south and drawing from the energy of 14th Street, it still is adding space likely beyond the demand.

6.  Consolidation and chaining of the retail industry.  Independents are hurt by how the retail sector has become dominated by chains, which enjoy special treatment by vendors, banks, and laws.

One way to counter this is to join buying groups and business services cooperatives, but not all independent stores do this.

7.  Competition/Fit of the business model/lack of robust concept and operations model.  Chances are good that there are other stores selling the same types of goods, so to be successful, a store has to have a good "value proposition."  That might not necessarily be price, it can be quality, service, experience, etc.

-- "Why ask why? Because," 2007
-- "Retail and restaurant check up surveys," 2009
-- "An update to Richard's Rules for Restaurant-Based Revitalization on the failure of wine bar restaurants in DC and Baltimore," 2018

Plus some places may not be that great anyway.  That's why I recommend that more commercial district revitalization organizations contract out for independent third-party evaluations of retail businesses, such as what are called "mystery shopper" evaluations.

-- "Critical analysis and critical analysis of retail, communities, etc.," 2014

(See table below.)

8.  The impact of e-commerce.  Online purchasing shaves off upwards of 10-20% of sales -- and more in certain categories such as office supplies and electronics, and has completely destroyed other categories altogether, such as travel -- reducing the revenue stream, profit margins, and flexibility to face downturns.

9. Location.  Not all submarkets in the city can support every type of retail category or even multiple stores in particular categories.  This gets back to the size of market point, but also a recognition that some commercial districts are "regionally serving" in that they serve multiple neighborhoods and include anchors that draw beyond the immediate neighborhood (and need to do so in order to be successful).

The smallest districts tend to support convenience retail -- food, pharmacy, hardware, gasoline -- and might have one or two specialty stores that may also serve as destinations, e.g. a store specializing in antique lighting in Cleveland Park, etc

10.  Lack of differentiated commercial district coordination mechanisms.  DC has Business Improvement Districts or Main Street programs.  There are plenty of areas that need something different

-- "The "soft side" of commercial district competition," 2006

Typically, across the nation, Business Improvement Districts function in large city commercial districts, especially "Downtown."  Some of the most prominent BIDs in the US are in New York City and Philadelphia, along with DC's Downtown DC BID.  The main actors in BIDs are the property owners.

Main Street groups typically are present in smaller towns and in neighborhood commercial districts that don't have a lot of office buildings.

The Main Street approach is different from the BID approach in that residents and other stakeholders who don't necessarily own businesses in the commercial district are drawn into the organization, to broaden the range of skills and volunteers able to work on issues.  (In my experience, Main Street volunteers tend to be 10-15 years younger than typical historic preservation group members, and live within a couple blocks of the main commercial street.)  DC began a city Main Street program in 2002.

A hybrid of the BID and Main Street approach is the "Community Improvement District," a special service district (that's what BIDs are) that covers both commercial and residential areas.  Baltimore has a couple, and one in particular, Charles Village, has been very contentious with a group of residential property owners who resent paying towards the SSD.  California has a lot more types of these districts, especially in San Francisco. 

But I have also written about the BIDs in San Diego, which are somewhat unique, in that they use the BID funding mechanism--a fee per $100/property value--but tend to use the more ground up "Main Street Approach" to shape the programming and orientation of the organization.

So the commercial district revitalization organizations in San Diego have the advantage of steady funding from a property tax assessment like a BID, but the broader organizational, programming, and volunteer structure of a Main Street program.  See "Let's Assess the Assessments" from the San Diego Reader.

That's a form that we're missing in DC, and ultimately the lack of steady funding has been the biggest problem for neighborhood commercial district revitalization organizations in the city.  But also some districts need marketing and business support, but not necessarily the Main Street model, etc.

11.  Store sizes are too big relative to sales..  National chains have been buffeted by these changes too and one of the things they are doing besides closing stores or going out of business is shrinking store size.

This reduces inventory and the amount of money tied up in it, increases focus on better selling items that sell more quickly, and reduces fixed costs for rent and variable costs for labor, utilities, etc. 

====
In short, I think that many of the stores mentioned in the Schwartzman piece have multiple issues, not usually just one.  Rent/commercial retail property issues are only two. 

From "Retail and restaurant check up surveys":

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Principles for creating complete concepts/identity systems for retail businesses*
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

• Understand the needs, preferences, habits, and aspirations of the target audience.
• Good design sells. It is a competitive advantage. Design is systems and processes, not just graphics.
• A disciplined, coherent approach leads to a unified and powerful brand presence.
• Create a distinct position and complete identity for your store/concept.
• Experience and study the competition and learn from their successes and failures.
• Understand traffic flow, the volume of business, and economic considerations of your location.
• The storefront is a mass communications medium that works 24/7 and can attract new customers, influence purchasing decisions, and increase sales.
• Logo and signage expresses the brand and builds on understanding the needs and habits of users in the environment.
• Exterior signage must consider both vehicular and pedestrian traffic.
• Design an interior space that is sustainable, durable, easy to maintain and clean, and is energy efficient.
• Consider the dimensions of space: visual, auditory, olfactory, tactile, and thermal.
• Understand the pyschological effect of light and lighting sources.
• Consider the needs of handicapped customers and those of different ages.
• The shelf is the most competitive marketing environment that exists.
• Align merchandising strategies with displays, advertising, and sales strategies.
• Create an experience and environment that makes it easy for customers to buy, and that inspires them to come back again and again.
• Create an environment that helps the sales force sell and makes it easy to complete a transaction.
• Align the quality and speed of service with the experience of the environment.
• Benchmark the quality and speed of service against the competition.
• Consider all operational needs so that the store delivers on the brand promise.
• Anticipate future growth. Measure, evaluate, change. Constantly ask: is the message clear?; is the content accessible?; is the experience positive?

* This table was built from the section on "creating touchpoints" from Designing Brand Identity (second edition) by Alina Wheeler

Retail's tough in general.  But people eat more than they buy stuff.  The Restoration Hardware in Georgetown, once one of the company's signature stores, is now a Wawa convenience store ("awa is coming to Georgetown. Bid farewell soon to Restoration Hardware," Washington Business Journal).