PAST ISSUES: October 2006

Editor's Note:  Gone shopping
Shop till you drop. That's what it might appear is going on in New Hampshire when it comes to retail stores.
According to statistics, the per household retail sales average in the state is $54,270, compared with a national average of $35,529.

Entrepreneur Watch:  Lessons of a "serial entrepreneur"
Mark Klein was a theoretical physicist at the University of New Hampshire in the early 1970s when he became intrigued by computers. Klein, who got his undergraduate degree in English at the University of Pennsylvania, joined another UNH professor to build a computer at the dawn of the microcomputer age. He and his partner sold that first creation - which had at the time an astounding memory - and Klein left academia behind. He launched a career as a "serial entrepreneur" which not so coincidentally matches the explosion of the Information Age.

Featured Article:  Size doesn't matter
Food network star Rachel Ray didn't need to rely on a phone book to find Portsmouth restaurants to feature on her show. Nor did she need a television, newspaper, or any other 20th century marketing media to accomplish her task.
Ray instead began her search on the Internet. Fortunately for Jerri and Anthony Schena, co-owners of the Muddy River Smokehouse, Ray's search led her straight to their Web site.

Featured Article:  Knowledge first; site second
Retail - like real estate - is about location, location, location. But if only it were that easy: Pick a choice spot for a business, then watch the big money roll in.

Featured Article:  Retail's Big Reach
Retail's reach gets longer with every year: the industry now accounts for one in five jobs in the Granite State.
The growth is staggering compared to the rest of the economy, a trend retailers and state officials attribute to New Hampshire's lack of a sales tax. It stands to outpace other sectors. New Hampshire's retail labor pool of nearly 100,000 will add 20,000 jobs by 2014, said Anita Josten, a research analyst at the state bureau of Economic Labor Market Information in Concord. And the growth has held steady the past couple of years, she said.

Featured Article:  Changing with the times
In August, a new store opened at the Fox Run Mall in Newington. The arrival of national apparel store Charlotte Russe reflected a few of the trends that have been transforming the mall industry for the past five to 10 years.

Featured Article:  Reputation, rents continue to rise
In 2005, Peavey's Hardware on Market Street in downtown Portsmouth closed, joining a decades-long list of departing downtown businesses where Portsmouth residents could buy some of life's essentials.
In 2006, New England Travel Life Magazine named Market Street as New Hampshire's top shopping destination.
Those two events illustrate how growth has affected the city's downtown retail landscape.

Featured Article:  Destination shopping
She is 30 to 55 years old. Her family's income is roughly $75,000. She lives in the Boston area and is educated. She knows her designers, she knows their lines and she knows her prices.

Featured Article:  Franchise Friendly
There’s arguably no more of a big box store mecca on the Seacoast than Route 1 in Seabrook. The town’s over- the-border, taxfree shopping location, its proximity to Interstate 95, and residential growth since a town-side sewer system opened housing development a decade ago, has changed Route 1 from a two-lane local road to a chain store express.

Politics:  Eating and sleeping in "Tax Free New Hampshire"
Guidebooks and business publications often indicate that New Hampshire is a no-tax state. They note the Legislature has consistently opposed income and sales taxes, and that the climate those decisions has created is good for small and large firms seeking a place that offers a unique and advantageous business climate.

Real Estate:  Older and younger shoppers will set retail trends
SV: What do demographic trends suggest will be hot niches for retail in the next five to 10 years?
Francese: First on my list is anything to do with pets. Any kind of retailing that sells stuff for dogs, cats or other such child substitutes should be doing very well. As baby boomers age there will be more empty nesters and they spend a great deal of money on their pets.

Last Word:  The Last Frontier
I recently had a eye-opening experience: I had a close encounter with exceptional customer service.
On the face of it, that may not seem too remarkable. But, really folks, despite the fact that we live in a service sector economic universe that impacts everything from our medical decisions to buying milk, customer service, we are told, is the big difference maker. But as we all know, the level of customer service from store to store and company to company is inconsistent at best.