Shopping Sketch – Results are trickling in from an extensive scientific study of the shopping habits of Helenans

Results are trickling in from an extensive scientific study of the shopping habits of Helenans, a study local development experts hope will lead to strategies to keep more shoppers here — and draw more shoppers from other Montana cities.

"We had heard anecdotal stories about people leaving Helena to shop," said Sheldon Bartel, executive director of Gateway Economic Development Corp., one of four entities to fund the research. "The study was designed to test those anecdotes, and to find out if people do shop outside the community, why. We were looking to reduce that retail leakage with the hope that more money would stay in the county and more jobs would be created locally."

By JOHN HARRINGTON – IR Business Editor

http://www.helenair.com/articles/2004/03/28/business/e01032804_01.txt

The study, the most extensive done of Helenans’ shopping habits in nearly a quarter-century, included telephone conversations with 400 people in Helena and surrounding communities. A&A Research of Kalispell did the legwork and crunched the numbers. The cost of the survey was borne equally by Gateway, the City of Helena (through HKM Engineering, the city’s consultant on a downtown vision and improvement process), the Capital Hill Mall and the Independent Record.

Full results won’t be known for several weeks, but among the study’s more interesting findings so far:

Helenans badly want a warehouse store of their own. When asked what retailer they’d most like to see come to town, Seattle-based chain Costco was the runaway winner with 19 percent of the vote. The next highest response was for clothing store Old Navy, at 5 percent.

The news was encouraging to Jeff Brotman, chairman of Costco’s board of directors.

"If that many people are that interested in having us there, we’ll sure give it a look," he said. "We asked our people to look at Helena recently again, and this just makes it that much sweeter."

Brotman said Helena would be at the smaller end of regions the store typically serves. A Costco on the west coast of the island of Hawaii serves a population of 50,000 and is the smallest market to have a full-sized store, he said.

Not surprisingly, people who mentioned Costco as a favorite choice were more likely to do more of their shopping out of town — perhaps in Missoula or Bozeman, which already have Costco stores. Thus, while a Costco would mean another box store in town, Bartel said it would also mean more people staying in Helena to do more of their shopping, rather than spending money in Bozeman’s mall and restaurants while they were on a warehouse trip.

The Wal-Mart area is the most popular shopping district in town, followed closely by the Target/ShopKo/Bon Macy’s stretch of North Montana Avenue, the mall and downtown.

Broad selection, low prices and customer service are not only the most important reasons people gave for leaving town to shop, they’re the factors most often mentioned when asked what might make Helena a better place to shop. Parking, store appearance and store location are far less important.

When asked what restaurant they would most like to see come to Helena, respondents named Red Lobster (26 percent) and the Olive Garden (20 percent). Both chains are owned by Darden Restaurants International of Orlando, Fla.

Red Lobster spokesperson Carrieann Adkins said that while the chain is always evaluating opportunities to expand, "our construction department told me we are not scheduled to build in Montana at this time."

She said that land costs, demographics and the availability of employees are some of the factors Red Lobster considers when looking to expand. Population is important too — the chain likes to see 75,000 people within 12 miles of the store, an area in which Helena comes up a little short.

Helenans view downtown more as an event/dining/entertainment location than somewhere to shop. Among people who are "very likely" to come to downtown, events, dining and entertainment are all more likely than shopping to draw them.

That tells Darryl James, HKM’s project manager on the downtown vision process, that more retail is needed.

"When you look at the mix of activity on the walking mall, it’s about half retail and half office space," he said. "We need to talk to property owners and encourage them to put retail back on the ground floor and move the offices upstairs."

Among age groups, people 55 and older are much less likely to go downtown for any reason.

"There’s a perception about downtown" among seniors, Bartel said. "It might be that you have to pay for parking, it’s hilly, there’s little convenience."

He added that with people looking to downtown for entertainment, money should be spent bringing bigger and better acts to town, to lure out-of-towners to join the Helenans who already flock to events like the Mount Helena Music Festival.

"What we have now is good, but it does not make us significantly different from our competitors," he said. "We need to find a better venue or attract some names that would bring people to our community and keep the locals here. We have Alive @ 5, but Billings has the Eagles."

Very few people from outlying towns like Boulder, Clancy and Townsend shop at the Capital Hill Mall. Twenty percent of Helenans said they regularly shop the mall, but among out-of-towners the number dropped to 5 percent.

Further results from the study will be available in coming weeks. Once all the numbers are in, Bartel hopes the retail community will put the research to good use.

"There’s an expectation that the data will allow participants to come up with strategies to combat retail leakage" by tailoring their marketing strategies to address the area’s shortcomings as identified in the study. "We can also provide information to go to national retailers and say, ‘Here’s the data, if you show up and build, you’ve got a market.’"

John Harrington can be reached at 447-4080.