Small business owners bank on service to compete
Megan Strickland
Elijah Corrigan waits on a customer in the Westland Seed sporting goods department. The department has hundreds of
Berl Tiskus
All In Stitches in downtown Polson offers high-quality fabrics, classes and more.
Berl Tiskus
Jackie Cripe, co-owner of Jackie M’s Footwear, right, visits with a customer as she tries on shoes. Both Jackie and her husband Mike pride themselves on fitting shoes and offering personal service.
Berl Tiskus
Downtown merchants offer service to compete with large box stores.
Berl Tiskus
All In Stitches in downtown Polson offers high-quality fabrics, classes and more.
Megan Strickland
Elijah Corrigan waits on a customer in the Westland Seed sporting goods department. The department has hundreds of
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LAKE COUNTY — Local business owners are taking stock of their business strategies, marketing and customer base after the October opening of the new Walmart Supercenter in Polson.
The new chain store gives shoppers access to thousands of commodities at perceived rock bottom prices. It brings competition for established grocery, sporting goods, and clothing retailers.
Since the new Walmart opened its doors, its parking lot has seen a steady flow of vehicles as people check out the new facility and its additional departments and merchandise.
While the store is a boon for area shoppers and reports it has hired 50 additional workers, not everyone is happy with the behemoth.
“We have seen a slow down — whether it’s the economy, Obamacare or Walmart,” said Jackie Cripe, who with her husband Mike owns Jackie M’s Footwear in downtown Polson.
The Cripes are members of the Polson Business Community, and that group is focusing on positive ways to keep customers and generate new ones. One way is the “3/50 Program,” Jackie said.
The program encourages consumers to think of three stores they would miss if they were suddenly gone tomorrow, and spend $50 per month in those stores.
“We’d like consumers to look locally before they go out of town or to the Internet,” Jackie said.
If a person shops online, she said, the money they spend doesn’t circulate locally; there are no wages paid to clerks, who in turn buy groceries and gas, etc.
Additionally, Jackie said, retailers need to keep their businesses strong to entice other businesses to come to Polson. With lots of storefronts available on Main Street, new stores could add to the downtown economy.
One downtown store, All in Stitches — a quilt shop, carries fabric, yarn, knitting and quilting supplies, patterns and completed items for sale, also offers classes.
Customers have to go check Walmart out, said All in Stitches Manager Susan Brown. Quilters put a lot of love, time and money into a quilt, and the fabric needs to be good quality or “it just won’t hold up, it won’t be a family heirloom,” Brown said.
The new Walmart has a grocery department, complete with fresh produce, meat, ready-to-eat items and frozen foods so residents are wondering how the store will affect local grocery stores, such as Super 1 and Safeway.
Greg Hertz from Super 1 declined to comment. Hertz said he and his staff have not gotten good comparison data since Walmart has only been open a couple of weeks.
Many business owners believe they can give shoppers an experience that can’t be found in the sterile, cookie-cutter aisle of the retail giant.
“Right now it hasn’t affected us too much,” Ronan Mission Mart owner Mike Noyes said. “I guess I would like to think it’s our customer service. We know our customers.”
Michael Reeve, sporting goods manager at Westland Seed, said he didn’t think the opening of Walmart or Cabela’s in Kalispell would spell doom for the local gun dealer because of the relationship their store has with the community.
“Our customer service here will be superior to Walmart and people that come in here will have a better home feel than a generic guy (box store) that doesn’t really know as much,” Reeve said.
Westland Seed is also able to offer shoppers more variety.
“We have over 200 guns on display and Walmart has maybe 20,” Reeve said.
Delbert Bontrager, owner of Mission General Store in St. Ignatius said a friend in Michigan, that operates a similar store to his, actually saw business increase in the long-term after a Walmart Supercenter went into business within eight miles of his store. That story reassured him a bit when the new Polson store opened.
He’s certain the general store’s selection of 50 different kinds of made to order meats and 40 varieties of cheeses is larger than what box stores carry. A lot of the general store’s deli prices are the same or lower than Walmart’s, Bontrager said.
“We have a very unique niche in the market, not quite like a regular grocery store, not like a Walmart,” Bontrager said. “We have old-fashioned, traditional friendly personal service. We consider ourselves a traditional country store.”
People from across the state make a point to stop at the general store, Bontrager said.
There are ways businesses can encourage increased commerce in the community overall, said Linda McCarthy, executive director of the Missoula Downtown Association and speaker at the recent Ronan Chamber of Commerce luncheon.
“It really takes a village to create a special place like downtown Missoula,” McCarthy said. “It’s not just about business, it’s not just about people. It’s about a whole variety of things.”
Businesses can promote events collectively, work together to make sure that even if a businesses disappears it’s storefront is kept vibrant instead of dark and gloomy, make sure crime is kept low, and promote uniform hours to help increase business.
“If one store is open 10 to 4 and another’s open from 10 until eight, you aren’t feeding off each other very well,” McCarthy said.
People want to be open from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m., but that’s when most customers are at work, McCarthy pointed out.
An online presence is also necessary to reach younger customers, McCarthy said.
“Anyone that’s 30 or younger is shopping online all the time,” McCarthy said. “They don’t even use the phone book.”
