Thanks to a new study, Starkville city officials now know that several key consumer groups in Starkville have $608 million in purchasing power. Those same groups spend more than a half-billion dollars in retail shopping in Starkville.
The report uses data Mississippi State University’s National Strategic Planning and Analysis Center (NSPARC) compiled while conducting a retail survey. The analysis used responses from 1,774 completed surveys, which were administered online and by phone.
Mayor Parker Wiseman, along with NSPARC representatives, unveiled the report at a public gathering Friday morning in City Hall.
The study focused on the purchasing power for five groups: Starkville residents ($236 million); visitors to the city ($190 million); MSU students ($80 million); MSU alumni and season ticket holders ($56 million); and MSU faculty and staff ($44 million).
While the groups have a significant amount of purchasing power, NSPARC’s study found they spend about $54 million on retail outside of the city in what’s known as leakage. Of that, $16 million is spent on groceries, $13 million on clothing, and $7 million on dining out and $5 million on entertainment.
What Starkville wants
Also revealed in the study is what consumers in Starkville want, with 87 percent saying they would frequently use a major shopping center or mall. Surveys found the top desired stores for Starkville are Target, Sam’s Club, Best Buy, Belk and Kohl’s. The restaurants survey respondents most want are Olive Garden, Cracker Barrel, Long Horn Steakhouse, Logan’s Roadhouse and Red Lobster.
Wiseman, who approached NSPARC two years ago to develop the study, said the city can use the data as it continues work to attract retail development.
“Having data, particularly on people who are moving in and out of the retail market, is a very helpful tool in making the case to prospective retailers that this is a safe market that is potentially profitable for them,” Wiseman said. “It’s hard to capture data on those groups by nature of the fact that they’re not always present.
“Now we have statistically significant data on their buying patterns, their consumer tastes, and their ability to buy more in the future,” he added.
NSPARC Executive Director Mimo Parisi said the study speaks to Starkville’s increasing diversification, and the data can be used to help attract different businesses to address the growing number of needs in the community.
“What was missing in all the previous efforts in this community was not the willingness and the passion to get the community to grow, it was ‘What asset is missing so that we can make our case even stronger to our prospect businesses that want to come?'” he said. “This data has become an asset that I hope this community is going to be able to leverage to attract whatever businesses will be relevant to get this community to grow socially, economically and culturally.”
Recruitment tool
The city’s community development department, along with its contracted retail recruiting firm, Retail Strategies, will use the data to field questions from potential retailers, Wiseman said, and to show Starkville, as a college town, has a stronger market than its population alone might indicate.
Wiseman said the desire to quantify that in a meaningful way drove the need for the study. He also said he drew inspiration from Tuscaloosa, Alabama, which has conducted similar surveys.
Ward 3 Alderman David Little, who attended Friday’s meeting, said he hopes the report will help attract businesses and retailers that might not otherwise consider coming without the data to prove Starkville’s market strength.
“The report shows we may not have the population base some of those retailers are looking for, but I think we’ve got the resources that we could make one of those businesses be profitable,” Little said.
Alex Holloway was formerly a reporter with The Dispatch.
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