Location, Location, Location. This adage is one of the most well known sayings in business. But location is more than being situated on a busy street or having the prettiest building. Being in research, this is something that I think about a lot. Who knows, one day I may want to open a bakery, I need to know where to locate it to bring in people who are truly interested in my product. If you are already set with your location and don't plan on moving, that's fine. This is a lot easier to do if you don't have a brick and mortar location yet or you're looking to move locations. But you need to think about where your customers are. If your product appeals to soccer moms that live in the suburbs, then opening a store in a large, downtown, urban area is not a great idea. It may be a great location, but are you really getting to your customer.
Ok, today we are going to pretend that we are a jewelry store. Let's say you want to set up shop in a college town. Remember, not all college towns are based solely on the college, there are other things and other people in the area. There are two locations. One is on a very busy street, there is a lot of foot traffic that walks in front of the store. This same location is also across the street from the university. To the left of you would be a pizza place, to the right is an off-campus bookstore. The other option is in a different part of town. It's a quieter part of town and there would be less foot traffic. The road, while not as busy as the other one, leads to a few new subdivisions. There are several shops in this area and it's like a mini-downtown. The shop to your left would be a gourmet food market and the shop to the right is a boutique clothing store. I'm hoping it would be easy for you to determine which location is better from these two simple descriptions. There are countless reasons why you shouldn't choose the location near the campus. Although there is a lot of foot traffic, it's probably from college students who don't have the money to buy jewelry. Also, if you're next to a bookstore, unless you have good sound protection, you'll probably hear a lot of what's going on in these stores, especially during the season when shelves are being stocked. Not to mention, do you want to smell pizza all day long? The other location caters to the type of clientele that you want. It may not be as busy, but you're closer to the clients that you want and it's likely that if they are shopping at the stores on either side of you, they may have the money or the interest to stop into your store.
In my college, there was a video rental store called Video Hits Plus across the street from campus. Being poor college students, a good night for us was renting a movie and picking up Jimmy John's to take back to our dorm. It was reasonably priced to rent from there, plus, instead of getting a card, all you had to do was show your student ID. It was perfectly situated. While other video rental places are probably going under, this one is thriving. Location does matter. A lot.
Happy Marketing!
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