With the economy fluctuating throughout the year, local businesses have to deal with seasonal spikes in revenue.
Because it’s a college town, Oxford business owners not only depend on local business, but business from students as well.
Often when students are home for summer and holiday breaks, the economy faces hardships.
Lynn Roberts, general manager of Square Books, says September through December is the biggest sales period because the stores are getting business from students as well as people preparing for the holiday season. Roberts added that January is a month of slow business used to catch up on work put off from the holiday season.
As far as business goes year-round, Roberts stated Square Books does a lot of mail orders to people across the nation and also benefits from students enrolled in school during the summer. She also said they are busiest when there is a home football game.
“Doing a lot of mail orders helps us out because we don’t depend on people in the stores and people can order things online,” Roberts said.
Square Books hosts many authors and writers in residence that do book signing events to attract customers at different times throughout the year, also increasing their popularity. The famed bookstore was referred to by the New York Times as the “Literary Salon in Faulkner’s Hometown.”
Planning book signings at certain times is important. Will Lewis, owner and CEO of Neilson’s on the Square, would agree that timing has a lot to do with business and that one must be smart in their timing. Lewis said their strategy is timing and regulating when merchandise comes into the store.
Lewis said Neilson’s isn’t entirely dependent on student business, but since everything in Oxford revolves around the school year on the campus, they do experience a small dip in sales when students are gone.
When students are here, they make up about 30 percent of Neilson’s business, another 30 percent coming from regional business. Lewis stated regional business includes those who come on campus not for just athletic events, but spring activities and long weekends as well.
“The thing you do when you aren’t going to be that busy is you just don’t hire as many people,” Lewis said.
Larkin Akel, owner of The Blue Lark, takes a different route and doesn’t cut back on hours for her employees.
“As far as managing hours during these times, we try to give our girls steady work, and as owners we take the hit,” Akel said.
This past January Akel gathered her employees together and strategized on how to overcome these spikes in the economy.
“Our goal in January was to get really good at social networking,” Akel said. “When it’s slow on a random Tuesday for example, we use our texting program people have signed up for, and we will send out a text at 10 a.m. saying there is a 50 percent off sale on one item from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. that day to get people in the store.”
Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are just a few of the social media outlets they have used to market to college students, and they are now beginning to use Vine as a new marketing tool. Vine allows them to take a couple of mini video clips combined into one video to market their items to their “followers” on the iPhone app. The Blue Lark also keeps up with all the events on campus and coordinates their shipments around times like Greek recruitment and formals.
According to Akel, last year the Blue Lark didn’t see a dip like they did in previous years, but they have managed their shipments well and definitely schedule a lot of their merchandise around Double Decker since that is their biggest weekend of the year.
Double Decker might boost the sales at Blue Lark, but Old Venice Pizza Co. owner Spencer Treanor says they benefit from business being packed into one day. But once the tourists are gone, they don’t make near as much money.
“Orientation brings us a good size crowd in the summer, and we have a loyal base with the locals, so we are able to do business even when the students leave,” Treanor said.
Mary Allyn Hedges, tourism manager of the Oxford Convention & Visitors Bureau, says Oxford’s hotel occupancy is much lower than the national average.
“People think that our hotels are always booked, but they’re not,” Hedges said.
Hedges says this is something they have been working on and have hired Berkeley Young with Young Strategies Inc. to look further into the matter and research this problem.
According to youngstrategies.com, “The Young Strategies team works with each of our clients to develop a research methodology that will capture the voice of their travelers by segment and identify actionable strategies to drive future growth.”
With Young Strategies Inc. on board, Hedges says they have been encouraging applicants for event grants to schedule the events during the off-season months of January and February in an effort to not cram them into the same weekends. But most want to host events when they know the tourism numbers will be high.
“We sit down and review all the grants for the year and review the economic impact with number of hotel rooms you will need and when you want to schedule the event,” Hedges said. “You have to have a minimum of ten hotel rooms and advertise outside of Lafayette County.”
Super 8 Motel in Oxford has reached out to different groups in town to keep business flowing. General manager Michael Simmons has resorted to making cold calls during the dips in sales.
“I call different schools that have teams coming to play here for lacrosse, soccer, softball, or whatever it might be, mainly ones that don’t already draw large crowds,” Simmons said.
Running specials internally for repeat visitors and giving out manager specials for people who contact them are a few of the strategies Super 8 Motel has offered to lure in customers, providing a reasonable rate for the market.
“I have 116 rooms, so I try to fill as many beds as possible rather than trying to charge them a high rate,” Simmons said. “I try to give a reasonable competitive rate, but I don’t make any money when the beds are empty and the utility bills and other expenses don’t change.”
When beds are empty, Simmons is forced to cut back hours for the housekeeping staff. He added that even though hours are shorter, the housekeeping staff is still given ample hours with at least four shifts, and any cuts are done across the board so no one has more hours than others.
Mackenzie Lowery, who has been working at University Sporting Goods since 2009, said she has experienced a cut back in work hours and knows first hand how it affects employees in this community.
“On football weekends I might have to work until 10 p.m. some nights, but on a random Monday when we are slow, he (the owner) might have to let one of us go home for the day if we aren’t needed,” Lowery said.
Lowery has recently been promoted to general manager and said even in that position she won’t be paid monthly salary, but instead on an hourly salary with full benefits.
“Three years ago we had an option to be on salary or hourly, and now it’s not even an option,” Lowery said.
With the hotel and retail industry in Oxford cutting back hours for employees, Tori Puckett, owner of Panini Deli and Oxford Catering Co., says she sometimes goes weeks without seeing a paycheck because she has had to make sure her employees are getting paid.
“It’s not easy, especially when you have a 5-year-old and bills to pay, but you have to make sacrifices,” Puckett said.
Puckett and her husband own the quaint business and struggle to pay bills when business isn’t steady, which affects them monthly when the grocery and utility bills remain the same no matter what their income is like for the month.
Panini used to be booked every single weekend during the holiday season, but now it only brings in half as much revenue as it used to since corporations are scaling back on Christmas parties and other holiday events in this economy.
The restaurant has turned to others to help get the word out. Sen-Tex Solutions, which helps Panini enhance word of mouth about their business, allows them to pay a flat fee of 99 dollars a month and send out unlimited text messages a week, giving daily specials and updates to customers who signed up for the program.
Puckett says she has tried pretty much every means of advertisement over the years, from Mississippi Magazine and Alumni Review to radio ads and coupon booklets on campus. But she likes to physically see who she is reaching out to within the text messaging system. Having personalized communication with customers is key, Puckett says, using her relationships with customers to keep business steady and produce repeat customers.
“We’ve been here for twelve years, and we’ve built good relationships with businesses and corporations, and to be here for twelve years as an independent business is pretty unheard of in the food industry, usually 80 percent fail within the first year in Oxford,” Puckett said.
With numbers like 80 percent of restaurants failing within the first year, it’s hard to ignore the problem.
“If you don’t make it during those first seven months out of the year, you might as well close your doors,” Puckett said.
