It’s a challenge facing almost every downtown area around the country: How to keep residents shopping locally rather than firing up the SUV for a drive to the mall. Big downtowns such as Chicago do it with specialty boutiques, trendy restaurants and lots of cultural activities.
But it’s harder for smaller shopping areas to compete with the mall’s siren song of one-stop shopping and temperature control.
Some areas, like Racine, Wis., have lost the battle, while others closer to home, such as west suburban LaGrange and Downers Grove, are enjoying hard-won resurgences.
All of them could profit by taking a page from the south suburban villages of Homewood, Flossmoor and Glenwood.
The three communities revived a promotion held once in the 1980s that was designed to boost local holiday shopping. Residents were asked to save their receipts from local merchants from October through December 25, so they could use them to bid on donated items at a silent auction in January.
Every dollar spent translated into one dollar for bidding. Buying a trip from a local travel agent counted. So did dry cleaning bills. Even purchases from big retail chains such as Walgreen’s, Home Depot and Kmart were included.
The campaign was almost too successful. Some 650 people came to the three village halls to have their receipts officially totaled in January. The amount spent locally: more than $2.4 million.
Here’s the rub, albeit a minor one. There were fewer than 200 donated items to bid on at the auction held Jan. 21, so some participants who had spent thousands of dollars didn’t have enough dough to win even so much as a free pizza from Domino’s. Some of the most sought-after prizes–two sets of tickets on American Airlines–went for $16,500 and $15,000.
“Our hope was as many people as possible would walk away with one item,” said Sheri Hamann, a banker at the Bank of Homewood who served as the auction’s chairwoman. “We knew everybody wouldn’t be able to.”
Hamann said she heard a minor amount of grousing from those who were aced out by bigger spenders, but others in the same position said they had fun nevertheless.
From local retailers’ point of view, there certainly wasn’t anything to complain about. Bill Frank, a travel agent with TravelBrokers/Carlson Wagonlit Travel in Homewood says he knows the event boosted his business because suddenly he was booking trips for new customers from nearby Olympia Fields and Chicago Heights.
“When people are asking specifically for their receipts, we know it had an effect. We saw people we haven’t seen before,” said Frank.
Despite the success of the local shopping campaign, the three communities won’t be doing it again next year. It’s just too much work to organize the whole thing, village officials say.
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“It’s a project that takes a year of planning,” said Suzanne Ehlebracht, owner of Nielsen’s Bakery in Homewood and president of the Homewood Chamber of Commerce. “It will probably not take that long next time it’s done, and the next will be a lot more fun because now people know how it works.”
New bag: Coach Inc., the maker of classic leather handbags, will soon be joining the parade of prestige retailers with a flagship store on the Magnificent Mile.
The new 4,200-square-foot Coach store will be located at 625 N. Michigan Ave., across the street and slightly north of the Nordstrom development that opened last fall. The boutique, which will open its doors this summer, will carry everything from handbags to coats to watches. There will even be some Coach furniture, part of the company’s new home collection.
The high-profile opening here–one of 15 new stores planned in a 12-month period–is part of the splash Coach is making now that it has become its own publicly traded firm, separate from former parent Sara Lee Corp.
It’s not just about new stores, explains Coach Chief Executive Lew Frankfort. The company also is updating the look of its purses and accessories to attract new, more fashion-forward customers.
One of the innovations: purses made out of fabric instead of leather, Coach’s staple material. The material, which is patterned with the letter “C”, comes in two color combinations, charcoal and heather gray and brown and cream.
Using fabric was quite a departure for Coach, and it ran the risk of alienating the brand’s loyal customers. But the company tested the product in Chicago last year. The trial was planned for six weeks but the items were such a hit they sold out in three, Frankfurt said.
Whether Coach’s new look deserves the credit or not, it’s hard to argue with the company’s strong performance this holiday season, a sharp contrast to most retailers’ sorry tales. Coach recently reported a 10 percent sales increase during the quarter ending Dec. 30, and a 39 percent rise in net income.
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