Survey Results Reveal 2010 Sales Trends

Stable sales numbers and a general satisfaction with the city’s advertising efforts marked last year’s holiday season, according to a recently released survey of business owners in St. Charles’ downtown historic district.

The questions were submitted in an e-mail blast to roughly 100 enterprises, mainly along North Main Street and South Main Street by the , said David Rosenwasser, president of the organization.

“I think under the economic environment that we are living in, the percentages of whose business was better, and whose were about the same, and whose was not as good were fairly positive,” he said.

Nearly 54 percent of the 41 responding businesses were either very or extremely satisfied with the number of customers they received during the 2010 Christmas Traditions festivities with just more than a fifth expressing moderate satisfaction. About a quarter of business said they were slightly or not at all satisfied.

Businesses reporting a change were split about evenly between those that saw an improvement and those reporting a decline over 2009 figures during the festival, while nearly another quarter of respondents said sales remained the same. The other 17 percent had not been in business before 2010.

The 18-question survey also gauged attitudes toward the celebration itself and the bureau’s promotion of it. More than nine in 10 respondents personally saw at least some of the $200,000 multimedia advertising campaign the city funded with 85 percent saying they felt it benefited their business. The television component of the effort was by far the most visible, with four in five respondents having seen commercials and nearly two-thirds saying they believed it generated more customers. Radio was the next most popular with print and online ads drawing the least recognition and favorability. A majority of owners reported that patrons directly mentioned the ads as a reason for coming to Christmas Traditions.

Christmas Traditions itself proved popular as well. More than eight in 10 survey respondents called it excellent or good with most of the rest deeming it “fair.” Only 5 percent called it poor or very poor.

Charlotte Schuman, owner of on South Main St., was among those expressing warm feelings in the survey.

“It was all positive,” she said. “I didn’t have anything negative to say.”

She hopes Christmas Traditions will continue. She said 2009’s holiday season had been her best ever but last year’s matched it.

Further along South Main, Sandy Shreve, owner of , another retail establishment, said her December figures were down a bit from last year, which she said had been the best of her six years on Main Street. She attributed the drop to the weather and said Christmas Traditions had been a boon. She even heard that a community in Lake St. Louis was considering a similar idea.

“I don’t know if people would come out at night if we didn’t have the special characters and make it like an old-fashioned Christmas,” she said.

The survey also included an area for suggestions to improve future efforts. Late-night shopping sessions were one topic. While some looked to extend late-night hours, a significant number said the Wednesday evening sessions were unfruitful and recommended a stronger focus on the weekend.

“Wednesday night hasn’t been very beneficial for our store, and Thursday night before Christmas wasn’t very good at all,” read one comment.

Some suggested lighting improvements, hours changes and an effort to be more inclusive of North Main in the festivities as well as various ideas regarding usage of the ice rink.

Many were generally positive about the event.

“I think the festival is fabulous for all businesses on Main Street… no improvements that I can think of,” read one.

But not everyone was as enthusiastic. One commenter suggested repairs to sidewalks and streets as well as more business involvement and more outdoor live music.

“We need new and more activities to stay competitive,” read another. “Staying the same will tire and not push enthusiasm for the event in the future.”

More than half the survey’s respondents were retail businesses and Rosenwasser said the questionnaire was only one of several measures his agency uses to judge how businesses are doing. Meanwhile, the tourism tax is a good indicator of how restaurants and lodging establishments are faring. Last year, figures were “off just slightly or flat,” he said.

“In these economic times, we would have liked to have seen something stronger than that on the one hand,” he said. “On the other hand, there are a lot of communities that were off far more than we were. As you look across the state, most communities were off. Again, it’s how you were in comparison to your competitive set. I thought that we were okay.”

He said the document will allow the city to adjust its strategies in competing with different shopping districts.

“It’s more of a trending interpretation,” he said. “How is this in comparison to other situations? How is it in comparisons to things we see in surrounding communities?”