By Sonny Simmons 
This month I want to talk about the retail recruitment effort that is ongoing for the City of Batesville. Earlier this year the City commissioned the Partnership to select a retail consultant to do a comprehensive retail study to identify potential retail businesses that may locate in Batesville. The City funded the study, and we selected the Retail Coach of Tupelo to perform the study. 

The Retail Coach is recognized to be one of the premier retail consultant groups in the country. One of the first things to be accomplished by the study was to clearly document our retail trade area and to identify businesses that would fit well within our community based on the minimum criteria that is established by each individual company.

Most companies base their location decisions on formulas that set certain requirements and in most cases, these requirements must be met before a community is considered. Examples may include: population density, per capita income, traffic counts, sales tax history etc. Bottom line is, if you don’t meet the minimum requirements set by the company, that business is not going to locate in that community.  

We at the Partnership and our city fathers are often asked, “Why can’t we get a Target store?“ or “Why can’t we get a Home Depot?” or other business.

The answer is really simple. We don’t meet the minimum requirements that are set by that business to establish a location consideration. 

The good news is, we have the first results of the study and the findings are very good. There are some businesses that we had no idea would consider us for a suitable location and others that we would be glad to have.
 

Take a look at the following list of retailers identified as top targets for Batesville’s retail recruitment and marketing effort:

Aubrey’s, Baskin-Robbins, Carter’s Children’s Clothing, Chick-Fil-A, Costco, The Children’s Place, CVS/Pharmacy, Denny’s Diner, Dickey’s Barbeque Pit, Don’s Seafood, Dunkin’ Donuts, Firehouse Subs, Five Guys Famous Burgers and Fries, Gander Mountain, GAP Outlet, Georgia Blue, Gordmans and Kohl’s Department Store. 

Also, Logan’s Roadhouse, Lost Pizza Company, Maurices Clothing, McAlister’s Deli, Newk’s Express Cafe, Outback Steakhouse, Papa Murphy’s Take ‘N’ Bake Pizza, Pet Supplies Plus, Petco Animal Suppliers, Petsense, Roses Discount Store, Ross Dress for Less, Ruby Tuesday, Sam’s Club and Shipley Do-Nuts.

Our next step, with help from the Retail Coach, is to develop our marketing material and begin to make direct contact with the corporate offices of these businesses. We must be realistic in our expectations, and we don’t expect to get all of these businesses to locate here, but we are going to make an aggressive effort to convince as many as possible to take a close look at what we have to offer. We feel we are headed in the right direction with the study and with the implementation of the recommendations. We are very optimistic in developing this sector