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Emporia Main Street
E-Newsletter |
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Get ready for May with a double dose of events this week! Remember to welcome Dynamic Discs Glass Blown Open Disc Golf participants this week as they participate in the Glass Blown Open from May 2 through May 4. The Block Party for the GBO is on Saturday, May 3rd from 6:00 p.m. until midnight. Preceding the GBO is another first for Emporia! Hispanics of Today and Tomorrow is moving their Cinco de Mayo celebration to downtown Emporia from 11:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. in the 800 Block of Commercial on May 3rd. So, you have some fun things to do this weekend! |
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For the first time, the Hispanics of Today and Tomorrow (HOTT) are moving the annual Cinco de Mayo celebration downtown on Saturday, May 3.
Come check out the food vendors, a Granada Theatre beer garden, dancing, music, art and much more!
For more information go to www.hottfiesta.com or e-mail the HOTT group at hottfiesta@hotmail.com
Click HERE for additional Cinco de Mayo information.
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The Glass Blown Open by Dynamic Discs!
With approximately 550 participants in this year's Glass Blown Open Disc Golf Tournament (plus guests), we are looking forward to a great event!
The Glass Blown Open takes place on May 1-4 all over Emporia.
Click HERE for more information on the Glass Blown Open.
Click HERE for more information on the Saturday Night (May 3) Players Party!
Click HERE to become a vendor at the Players Party!
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Flatland Cruisers Car Show- May 10th
Join the Emporia Flatland Cruisers for their annual downtown car show. Registration begins the morning of Saturday, May 10th. For more information, visit the Emporia Flatland Cruisers on-line by clicking HERE.
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Dirty Kanza
Click HERE for the Finish Line Vendor Registration Form
Click HERE for the DK Course Maps
Click HERE for Finish Line Party Information
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Main Street Merchandise
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You can order the items listed below at a variety of local merchants, at the Emporia Main Street office or on-line at www.emporiamainstreet.com
Emporia-Opoly, the local version of the classic Monopoly board game, features local businesses, historic sites and special Emporia tokens. This is the perfect gift for current or past Emporians. Because there is a limited quantity, we suggest you get yours soon..
Emporia Main Street Gift Certificates are always the perfect size! Give the gift of shopping local this year with the gift of Emporia Main Street gift certificates, good at our member merchants throughout Emporia.
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Learn more about local amenities, organizations, businesses, events and more with the E-Town Mobile App! The ETown App is a joint project among Emporia State University, Flint Hills Technical College, USD 253, The Emporia Gazette, the City of Emporia, the Emporia Convention and Visitors Bureau and Emporia Main Street.
For IPhone Users, click here:
For Android Users, click here:
For the NEW iPad Version, click here:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/e-town-app-emporia-kansas/id712001984?mt=8
New additions AND a Web version COMING SOON!
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Flint Hills Technical College is currently developing its 2015-2020 Strategic Plan. Feedback from our constituents is crucial to the success of this process, so we would greatly appreciate you taking the time to fill out this short survey. Please feel free to share this link with other members of the community, and please submit your answers no later than May 1, 2014.
Click here to take the survey:
http://fhtcstratplan.polldaddy.com/s/fhtc-strategic-planning-survey
Enroll today! Visit http://flinthills.augusoft.net or call 620-341-1392.
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Property Availability Guide
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For property owners with property available for rent or sale, this is a free service to collect information and post it on the Emporia Main Street Web Site. With other market information available, we hope this site makes it easier for potential businesses and property developers to find spaces they need.
CLICK HERE to enter information about your available property and view previously submitted information.
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Business Investment Guide |
Do you know a business that should locate in Emporia? Maybe you know an entrpreneur looking for resources or a business owner looking to expand? The Business Investment Guide is community information designed to help you point your contacts in the right direction!
CLICK HERE for the INVESTMENT GUIDE |
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What is our actual Market Trade Area?
Where our shoppers are (mostly) from matters
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In business, we talk a lot about "the market". Identification of customers, spending, demand and supply within an area is so important that it has its own discipline within schools of business called Marketing. But, when actually trying to apply market principles to demand and supply it is tempting to simply alter our market parameters to give us the answers we seek. Either artificially inflating or deflating a market geographic region can substantially change population, income, categorical supply and/or demand.
We have presented "ring studies" in the past that simply look at a static ring around a set point in a community that represents a certain arbitrary distance. For example: we can look at everything  included in a ten, twenty-five or fifty mile ring of Emporia fairly easily. But, are these arbitrary distances representative of our actual market? Simple rings don't account for things like drive times, other markets that overlap our own and the concept of "gravity" within markets (the larger the community, the greater distance they can pull customers from).
Without a solid idea of our market geography, we can't determine our sustainable consumer needs or market opportunities for potential entrepreneurs with any degree of accuracy. But, accurate market modeling takes a tremendous amount of time, access to quality data and expertise in the application of market modeling. A few months ago Dr. Rob Catlett, an Economics Professor from Emporia State University introduced Emporia Main Street to an intern named Nizomiddin Kuchkarov. Nizomiddin is an exceptionally bright student from Uzbekistan, and part of his educational directives from his home nation required him to participate in an internship. With guidance from Dr. Catlett, we developed the parameters of a special project to determine the actual geographic region that represented Emporia's market, how Emporia's market interacted with surrounding markets and what the revised data meant for our community in terms of supply and demand for area products and services.
This is what Nizomiddin found:
First, some background. The term "market" can be used to identify different elements of a geographic area as it pertains to potential consumers. For our purposes, the term market identifies the geographic area in which typical Emporia consumers exist. We understand that other markets exist within proximity to Emporia. We have the Kansas City market, the Manhattan market, the Lawrence market, the Topeka market, the Wichita market, Salina, Hutchinson and so on.
Each market has "gravity". Nizomiddin stated: "Gravity models are mathematical formulations that are used to analyze and forecast spatial interaction patterns. Gravity models define a trade area based on its attractiveness relative to other trade areas." To explain this concept in simpler terms, think of two cities that each had 25,000 people in them that were 50 miles apart with city "a" 50 miles north of city "b". In the middle of those cities exists a highway that runs on a parallel axis running east and west between "a" and "b". A gravity model suggests that residents north of the highway would travel to city "a" and people south of the highway would travel to city "b" because each city had equal gravity. Now, let us suppose that city "a" had 50,000 people and city "b" had 25,000 people. In that scenario, city "a" would have twice the gravity (population is one of the factors in "attractiveness" because it leads to increased buying power). In this scenario, city "a" would pull consumers from south of the imaginary highway and encroach upon the city "b" trade area. The increase in population for city a, when coupled with its increased buying power creates more business opportunities and thus provides market trade area residents more choices for businesses that can be sustained within the larger market.
The distance people will travel to an existing market ( without considering pressures applied by other markets) is identified in a formula known as " Reilly's Law". You can see the actual formula for Reilly's Law below:
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(where dxj is the break point between customers who will go to one city (i) and customers who will go to the other (j). The break point maximum is the distance from the smaller city. dij is the total distance between two cities; Pi and Pj are size variables of cities i and j respectively).
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While Reilly's Law gives us a good approximation of distance break points for singular markets, it does have some limitations. Highways, rivers and other geographic barriers have an impact on market size by making the geographic region easier or harder to traverse. So, instead of distance traveled in a point to point line, newer models consider the actual minutes traveled. In addition, city pull factors are a representation of market strength within an area and generally can be utilized as a multiplier in conjunction with population to gain a more realistic perspective on geographic market size. Finally, we understand that markets interact with a variety of other markets. In the Emporia area, we are surrounded by much larger markets and exist in an area that doesn't contain a lot of dense population points immediately adjacent to Emporia.
To compensate for variables listed above, Nizomiddin added additional qualifiers via data sets obtained through Esri, Neilsen Claritas, Info USA, the US Census, the Kansas Department of Revenue and the Kansas Small Business Development Center at ESU. The formula below describes the more complete gravity model:
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Where B= break point- the distance from the smaller city in a comparison to the trade area boundary, Dij is the distance from city i to j. P is the population of the city and C is the City Trade Pull Factor. In this scenario, city "i" is assumed larger.
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When we look at a static geographic market trade area that doesn't compensate for the interaction of other markets upon the Emporia market, our geographic area is quite pronounced. The average drive time that we pull from is approximately 41 minutes of drive time. The simple geographic model is represented in the graphic below:
 | | Notice within the gravity based market trade area that the highway system extends the geographic boundary of the market. |
We know that Emporia is surrounded by some much larger cities. Nizomiddin calculated market gravity of those areas using the most conservative data available. For example, Manhattan is a metroplex that includes Junction City and Fort Riley, but only Manhattan was considered in the gravity model. Likewise, Kansas City is a metroplex that contains several cities including communities across the state line, but only Kansas City Kansas was used in the gravity model. Pittsburg competes with Joplin, MO, but again this scenario did not study the interaction between Kansas communities and communities outside the state of Kansas. Similarly, Coffeyville competes with several similarly sized communities in their area and communities in Oklahoma, but those markets were not quantified within this exercise. This is important, because other communities, even with conservative data used, intersect our market trade area.
Wichita, for example, includes Emporia within their gravity model of a trade area. Thus, if a business exists in Wichita, they may not want to create another store in Emporia because they may think they are competing with themselves within the same market area. The issue becomes more pronounced as we look at a series of other communities that surround east-central Kansas.
Even with the Emporia market as the top layer of the imposed map, you can clearly see how Kansas City, Lawrence, Topeka, Manhattan, Salina and Wichita markets overlap the Emporia market. Remember the initial gravity model cited that indicated that the larger community typically pushes back the market region of the smaller community? That basic market truth adjusts the geographic boundaries of our traditional gravity market to look more like this:
By looking at our actual market trade area, and voids that exist within the nexus of larger trade areas, we can determine what our actual market opportunities are and how we should move forward positioning Emporia for the coming decades. A quick glance at a trade area intersection map makes it abundantly clear that we cannot exercise the traditional market power enjoyed by many of a our large regional competitors, but we can take steps to fill our existing market gaps with destination businesses: businesses that can pull from beyond traditional market boundaries because you can't find the exact business in other surrounding areas. Only through the utilization of unique businesses, events and attractions can we hope to consistently and sustainably build our local economy.
Emporia has had differing views about the size of our market for as long as I can remember. Although we have several destination businesses that can routinely pull consumers from outside of our market due to their unique products or services, the vast majority of our consumers come from the geographic region in the map posted above. The intersection of several different, much larger, markets within our traditional trade area region should give us a clear direction in how to develop as a community. We cannot simply "outsize" communities that have a distinctive population advantage, but we can use our relative size to support unique businesses as destinations that also support our local population.
Only by using our market data to make decisions based on what our market is rather than what we wish it would be will we be able to make the smart decisions that will improve our market so that our population and incomes will increase. This is the way to building a better Emporia. The alternative is a frustrating scenario that requires us trying to sell what we aren't to the outside world. That never turns out well.
If you would like complete maps and data used in the creation of the information listed within this article, please contact Emporia Main Street. If you are looking for a bright young employee that can create economic modeling for your community or business, we hope you consider contacting Emporia Main Street to gain the contact information for Nizomiddin Kuchkarov.
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Did you know???
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Last week we met with some city officials about a variety of ongoing projects, held a business enhancement team meeting, met with Dirty Kanza organizers, sat down with
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Main Street at the FHTC Sustainability Fair
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some ESU Public Relations students, put together a variety of materials for upcoming events, helped promote some new businesses to the downtown (more on the way), participated in a FHTC Sustainability Fair, checked fencing for some outdoor events that will contain beer gardens and squeezed in a first day off in a long time (but forgot to shut the cell phone off, so...). We are getting ready for a fun, BUSY month, but big events give us the opportunity to get some
good questions from all of you
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1. "How is the Radius opening going?"- From several people. Things seem to be going well. The brew/pub is busy and has received some good community reviews. Of course, a new business isn't perfect, and Radius will need some time to grow and improve, but they are on the right track as long as the community remains supportive.
2. "How did you make that quiz program?" From some booth vendors at the Sustainability Fair. During the Flint Hills Technical College Sustainability Fair, Main Street used a community quiz loaded on an iPad to entice people to visit our booth. It may have looked high(er) tech, but it was actually just a Power Point presentation with some "hot spots" embedded. It is a pretty easy process, and if any of you want to put together an interactive quiz for your organization or business, please simply contact Emporia Main Street and we can give you some tips. Necessity is the mother of all invention, and we don't have the resources to purchase expensive software (like many of you), but we do try and find creative uses for the resources we already have.
3. "I'm a part of a church that wants to do a downtown clean up; can you provide trash bags?" From an area congregation. If you have a group that wants to do a clean up activity downtown, we have some resources that can help. We appreciate volunteers. Simply contact the Main Street office, and we will try to provide supplies that we have on hand.
4. "Can you use certain (they gave us a list) hash tags to alert ESU students about what's going on in town?" From some very bright Public Relations students. Twitter is an extremely popular social media conduit for college students. As an individual far removed from his college days, I have some difficulty effectively communicating with some students. However, an ESU Public Relations class did give us some handy tips about consistent use of hashtags (it adds consistency to your message and makes conversations easier to "follow") and different student-centric organizations that we should direct messages to using the "@" symbol and the handle of the student organization. Consistency (two tweets per day, minimum) was also a strong suggestion. It's good to have extended conversations with a target market for your business or organization about preferred communication methods. You can't find answers if you don't ask questions.
5. "Why do you want to send out such a complex topic in an e-mail?" From some volunteers that previewed this week's newsletter. Every newsletter we send out goes through a type of vetting process so my bosses can make sure the tone and verbiage meets organizational standards. Some newsletters are "fluffier" than others. Once we had data in hand from ESU and a variety of other sources, I felt it important to release the detailed findings in an article. Why? For several reasons... First, we have a lot of people that have a hard time grasping what a market is. Secondly, we meet people every day that, when market data doesn't support what they want, they simply say "lets increase the size of the market!" (markets don't work like that...). Third, we have a lot of people that make the argument that we can increase the size of our market (and thus, encroach upon other larger markets) by having one of the same types of business that exist in a larger market (the larger market is already established and their customers won't leave their market to obtain the exact same product in our market. That's just common sense.) Fourth, we have people make the argument that an amenity acts as a destination that equals people spending in the same types of businesses that exist in their home market and thus artificially inflate the market trade area size (again, markets don't really work like that).
So, I felt it necessary to partner with others to give a much more detailed market model to explain what we really are, from a market perspective. The hope is that by injecting some research data into the debate, we can focus on emphasizing our strengths instead of committing resources towards strategies that have a low probability of success. The other hope is that we can have a mature conversation as a community about sustainable types of business in a community of our market size. In a recent survey of area college and high school students, several voiced their outrage that we didn't have the same businesses present in communities with markets several times our size (in population and surface area) with much higher household incomes (Kansas City, Wichita, Manhattan, Lawrence). Without a mature discussion, people assume that a business isn't in town because we keep them out or don't cheer for them enough. Multinational corporations aren't like Tinkerbelle: we can clap all we want, but it still won't make them spring to life (or change our market). So, our options are to build a market sustainably through a series of measured steps, or to keep making grandiose claims and watch as our market stagnates and our citizens become more frustrated. Which will you choose?
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President's Circle
Emporia Realty Group
www.emporiarealtygroup.com
608 Commercial
620-412-9850
IM Design Group
www.imdesigngroup.com
17 W. 5th
620-343-3909
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541 Sherman
www.kiss103.1.net
620-343-6144
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Emporia Main Street Calendar of Events
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May 2-4
The Glass Blown Open. This Dynamic Discs tournament will take place throughout the Emporia area.
May 10th
The Flatland Cruisers Car Show
May 18-20
National Main Street Conference in Detroit Michigan.
May 31
The Dirty Kanza
riders leave at 6:00 a.m. from the 800 Block of Commercial Street.
June 19
Emporia Main Street Annual Meeting
June 21
Business Stroll
August 23
Trilogy Disc Golf Open
September 13
The Great American Market
Do you have an upcoming event for your business or organization?
Let Emporia Main Street know and we may include it on our upcoming calendars!
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General Level Members
AKA Marketing
Amish Woodworks
Applebees
Ash LLC
Atherton & Huth
Bank of America
Bath Expressions
Ben Moore Studio
Bennett Dental Group
BG Consultants
BLI Rentals
Bluestem Farm and Ranch
Brown's Shoe Fit
Bruff's Bar and Grill
C & J Woodworks
Candlewood Suites
Capitol Federal
Cassell Insurance
Chester Press
Clark Carpet and Tile, Inc.
Coffelt Sign Co.
Complete Works
Country Mart/Price Chopper
Dan's Hands Massage
Davis Paints
Disciple Shoppe
Dorsey Eye Care
Douglas Chiropractic
Dr. Kerri Thompson, DDS
Dynamic Discs
Eastwood Lake Apartments
Ek Real Estate
Emporia Construction and Remodeling
Emporia Radio Stations: KVOE, 104.9 & 101.7
Emporia State Federal Credit Union
E-Town Solutions
ESU Memorial Union
Evergreen Design-Build
Flint Hills Eye Care
Flint Hills Mall
Association
Flint Hills Music
Floyd's Automotive
Forget Me Not Productions
Four Seasons Apartments
George Groh and Sons
Gerald Schumann Electric
Granada Coffee Company
Graves Drug Store
Haag Management
Hair Krafters
Heart Center Studio
Helbert & Allemang
High Gear
Java Cat Coffeehouse
Junque Drawer Emporium
Kansas Radio 96.1 The Wave
King Liquor
L & L Pets
Lyon County State Bank
Lyon County Title
Mark II Lumber
McDonalds
McKinzie Pest Control
Midas Touch Tans
Mike Alpers Agency
Mr. Sisters Sweets
Modern Air Conditioning, Inc.
Mulready's Pub
Navrats Office Supply
Papa John's Pizza
Pizza Hut
Pizza Ranch
Plum Bazaar
Poehler Mercantile
Pool and Associates
Prairie Sage Apartments
Pro-Cuts
Rand Simmons Law Office
Redline Trucking
Reflxns Salon
Rhinestone Cowgirl Salon
Sauder Custom Fabrication
Schellers Lawn and Landscape
Scott's Lawn and Landscaping
Second Love Gifts
Stanley Jewelry
Studio 11
Subway
Sunflower Gymnastics
Sutherlands Lumber Co.
Sweet Granada
Textbook Corner
Thompson Auto Repair
Toso Appraisal
Total Technology
Town Crier Bookstore
Triad Leasing
Uncommon Threads
Value-Net LLC
Waters True Value Hardware
Westar Energy
Williams Automotive
Wright CPA Group PA
Wright's Furniture
Xan-A-Do Salon
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Non Profit Level Members
Big Brothers Big Sisters
Cradle to Career Cneter
Emporia Eastside Community Group
EHS- FBLA
Emporia Arts Council
Emporia Chamber of Commerce
Emporia Farmers Market
Emporia Friends of the Zoo
Emporia Presbyterian Church
Emporia Friends of the Library
ESU- Alumni Association
ESU- Small Business Development Center
ESU- Memorial Union
ESU- Theatre Dept.
Flint Hills Community Health Center
Granada Theatre Alliance
National Teachers Hall of Fame
Saint Francis Community Services
Salvation Army
SOS
TFI Family Services
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Home Based Business Members
Avon- Amanda Hopkins
Gold Canyon Candles- Stephanie Morgan
Green Door Recycling
Interdependent Web, LLC
Longaberger Independent Consultant -Judy Dieker
Mary Kay- Lori Engle
Nicole Bradshaw Designs
Origami Owl- Angela Dowell
Paula's Creations
Pampered Chef- Chelsea Gerleman
Purse Lady- Nancy Crawford
Scentsy/ Grace Adele- Kelly Long
Tastefully Simple- Vanessa Apodaca
Thirty One Gifts- Linsey Hopkins
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Individual Supporters
Amy and Rick Becker
Amy Evans
Brad Harzman
Dale & Carolyn Davis
Don Hill
Erin and Casey Woods
Joyce Zhou
Julie Johnson
Kayle Oney
Kelly Wade
Lynn Knechtel
Mark and Amy McAnarney
Michael and Karen Shonrock
Valerie and Matt Zimmerman
Roger Heineken
Smitty Smith
Sue Blechl
Tim & Mary Helmer
Tyler & Melanie Curtis
Yvonne Pool
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