Staying Local, Online and Off

By Kristen Pope

Strolling around downtown and popping into different retailers to complete the day's shopping is becoming a thing of the past in some small towns. Why head into town when you can just use your phone or laptop and have your purchases come to you?

Just as in bigger places, the shift to online retail is affecting small towns. Some of the challenges are the same, but at this smaller scale, others are unique.

Here's a look at three small towns grappling with the problem and crafting solutions — often modest ones — to cope.

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Athens, Ohio

City planner Paul Logue, AICP, has noticed an increased number of delivery trucks in Athens, Ohio, of late, toting boxes of goodies bought online to the members of his community. He and town leaders have certainly noted the shift, but local businesses seem to still be holding their own.

Athens is home to about 24,000 residents, 20,000 of whom are students at Ohio University. Its core commercial area is called Uptown Athens, and most of this retail space is oriented toward college students and tourists, with storefronts occupied by bike shops, sporting goods stores, and gift shops. The relative health of Athens's commercial corridor gets a boost from the surrounding area; the city is a regional draw for some 100,000 people.

If people can't find what they're looking for in town, they might travel to Columbus, but that city is a 90-minute drive away. "We're a little bit isolated," Logue says of the greater Athens area, which is hemmed in by the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains and the Ohio River.

Plenty of locals and students also shop online but, Logue says, even in 2018, not as many as one might think. Athens has good internet access, but in the region as a whole online shopping is simply not an option for everyone because of inadequate internet infrastructure in the surrounding — mostly rural — areas.

"In this region of the country, we still have broadband capacity and deployment issues, so for a lot of people, online retailing is not something they may even have the opportunity to [use]," Logue says. He points out poverty and access to credit are also an issue for some. Many people on government assistance may not be able to purchase essentials like food and hygiene items online.

But online purchases are having important impacts — namely on the local sales tax revenues.

The state loses, too, Logue suspects. "Within the state of Ohio, when you file your state income taxes, you're supposed to claim sales tax on anything you purchased online," he says. "I'd be shocked if many Ohioans filled that out. I think it gets very complicated."

Luckily, local officials and residents seem to be on the same page when it comes to fostering local retail. Athens is in the process of redoing the city's comprehensive plan. Visioning occurred in late 2017, and this year planners are gathering more information.

"I was surprised, and I still am ... about how many people participated in our planning process that specifically identified as a desired thing in Athens more retail — more local retail — so that was good to see," Logue says.

Athens is a food-focused city with a strong independent food movement including craft breweries, wineries, and a distillery, as well as a local farmers market. The city also hosts winter festivals and fairs, block parties, and other events to help encourage shopping locally.

Greenfield, Massachusetts

As more cities feel the crunch of online retail, many are looking to diversify their offerings. Greenfield, Massachusetts, is one of them. Home to just under 18,000 residents, it has retained a couple of big-box stores, but director of planning and development Eric Twarog, AICP, says, "Greenfield is a typical American small town or city that has lost retail."

In order to keep sales tax revenue local and economies thriving, the community is working to encourage locally based retail and rethinking other options. "We know retail is ... never going to return to its former self. We have to reinvent ourselves like every community does so we are concentrating on community health and medical services in our downtown core area," Twarog says.

Greenfield is also using a number of strategies to bring jobs and tax dollars to the central district.

It changed its parking ordinance to reduce minimums and allow shared parking. It is constructing a new four-level parking garage downtown and installing wayfaring signage.

The Greenfield Business Association and Chamber of Commerce puts on events, including First Friday night events, to encourage people to get out and shop and participate in nightlife.

Greenfield is also working on providing services people can't order online, encouraging community health organizations and medical offices to open downtown. The city is also changing zoning to encourage mixed use in the center of town.

Huntsville, Texas

While many communities are suffering from competition from web sales, some small retailers are finding a new audience online. Huntsville, Texas, is home to around 42,500 residents, including 20,000 college students and 10,000 to 12,000 inmates in several prison facilities in the city and county.

In Huntsville, specialty retailers have boosted their sales by selling online. According to interim city planner Janet Ridley, many local boutiques do a brisk business this way.

"They specialize in a certain style of clothing or merchandise that you may not be able to get in a department store," says Ridley.

Another Huntsville-area retailer making the most of online sales is a gun and ammunition retailer. "They have a storefront that does a pretty good business and a shooting range where they can offer some services you definitely can't get online," Aron Kulhavy, AICP, interim city manager, says. "But really that business proliferated due to online shopping and sales."

One of the major challenges communities are facing due to online retail is that every dollar spent elsewhere or online may mean decreased tax revenue.

"Sales tax is our single biggest source of general fund revenue," Kulhavy says. "It is imperative that we have that so we can provide basic services to the community, particularly police and fire."

Like other communities, Huntsville uses events to promote shopping locally, including a Main Street Program, Small Business Saturday, and the Small Business Month in November. They have a raffle ticket program that generated more than $50,000 in sales at participating vendors, according to Kulhavy.

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Community connection

Even if communities do everything they can to encourage brick-and-mortar stores, ultimately, it's up to the retailers. "Even if people say they want to see more local retail, we still need to find that entrepreneur who is willing to take the financial risk of doing so," Athen's Paul Logue says. "You have to offer something you can't easily get online or be competitive on price and convenience."

Appealing to residents' sense of community and values could also help. "I don't know if it's an Athens culture or more about the Appalachian mentality about supporting each other," Logue says, but people in his town have an awareness of local stores and their impact. "That money is more or less staying in your community rather than money going to whoever online."

Kristen Pope is a freelance writer and editor and a frequent contributor to Planning.