The Heartland Partnership continues its commitment to making sure you know what’s happening with our national and local economy. We are beginning an in-depth look at our ‘Big 7’ industries including retail, financial, auto/durable goods, healthcare, housing/real estate, manufacturing and development. In this week’s Excelerate Newsletter we are taking a look at retail.

We hear the national numbers and it sounds like the sky is falling and stores should be closing up shop all over the country. But they’re not! National sales were not as great this holiday season as years past but people are still shopping. Our local retail industry is surviving and in some cases it’s thriving.

Many of our local businesses are successful because they planned ahead when they saw these economic troubles coming. The Midwest is known for having conservative business practices and this has tremendously helped our businesses to withstand the peaks and valleys of the economy. Local businesses also have an understanding of this regional market and customer base. That is one more reason why our retail sector hasn’t been as negatively impacted as other regions.

In the attached document you will find out what local retailers are saying about their businesses, what their customers and peers have to say about the economic situation and what it’s taking for them to succeed during these difficult times. Dr. Joshua Lewer, BU economist, also lends some insight to what’s happening in the retail sector right now.

You can also hear for yourself what local retailers have to say about their businesses, retail in general and what their customers are saying. We talked with local retailers Bob Woolsey and Pierre Serafin along with Bradley University Economist Dr. Joshua Lewer to get the local story. Follow these links to see and hear their complete interviews:

http://www.edc.centralillinois.org/goto/RegionalRetailClimate
http://www.peoriachamber.org/goto/EconClimate09Retail

Sincerely,
Jim McConoughey
President/CEO The Heartland Partnership

media-story-1 (Adobe .pdf file)

Tags: Heartland Partnership, Jim McConoughey

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 8th, 2009 at 9:32 pm and is filed under Orgs.. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.