It was interesting reading Dunning’s column on Sunday at to why a Target in Davis won’t ruin downtown. But as usual, Dunning misses the fundamental point: Target is coming because they believe they will make more money by having a store in the Davis market. That means they will be taking away revenue from other places.
I’m fairly certain that what Bob actually meant is that he couldn’t buy products like that in bulk in the Davis Downtown. And Bob that is exactly the point—the Davis downtown businesses cannot compete for bulk sales with Target. Thus building a Target in Davis puts them at a competitive disadvantage.
Dunning also argues that Target will be “attracting those who would have shopped at an out-of-town Target anyway,” thus “having little or no effect on the health and attractiveness of downtown Davis… Trust me on this.” Nonsense.
Those who argue that all we are really doing is redirecting those shoppers from Davis who have to travel to Woodland are missing a point—Target would not build here and go through the heavy and expensive effort to win a ballot measure if they expected a mere transfer of the existing market.
Let’s think about this—first of all there are the one-time expenses including a $300,000 political campaign just get approval to build a Target. There are also the large construction costs. Finally, there are the ongoing costs of hiring additional employees to staff the new Target.
Nope, if Target just believed that the construction of the new store would transfer the Davis share of the Woodland Target market, they would not have built a new store. It would not make any sense for them to do so. So obviously, they are expecting to make more money by having a new Target store. And if they expect to make more money, they must be expecting to take market share from existing businesses and transfer it to Target because of the new convenience of shopping in Davis.
They won’t be taking away that business from the Mustard Seed or Union Bank, but they make take away business from downtown stores that actually sell similar products as Target—you know like the baby store, stationary and office supply stores, clothing shops, etc. How many businesses have overlapping products? Doesn’t Target believe they would capture a lot of this market share? They must otherwise they would again not expend the resources to build a new store.
It is true that for some of Davis, the Target in Woodland is not much further than the new Target will be, there is something about driving out of town that acts as a barrier to some shoppers. For instance, I go to Mace Avenue in Davis quite frequently but I rarely go to Woodland. And when I do go to Woodland it is usually on my way to the airport for a specific reason—departure or arrival.
At the end of the day it is hard to know what impact the new Target will have on downtown, but it is naïve and/or dishonest to suggest that the impact will be minimal since the same people who went out of town will be the ones who shop at the in-town Target. If that were actually the case, Target would have had no incentive to build a new location in Davis. We can assume that their marketing gurus determined that there would be substantial additional revenue to Target by opening a new location.
---Doug Paul Davis reporting
“When I look back at the number of times I’ve shopped at Target in Woodland, it was virtually never for an item I could just as easily have purchased in downtown. The last time I checked, the Mustard Seed doesn’t sell 100-count boxes of jumbo paper clips. Neither does Union Bank.”So let me get this straight Bob, nowhere in Downtown do they sell jumbo paper clips? Is that what you are saying? I’m sure some of the shops who do set that product would be interested to know that. But Bob, might have trouble figuring that out if he’s looking for office supplies in a restaurant or a bank.
I’m fairly certain that what Bob actually meant is that he couldn’t buy products like that in bulk in the Davis Downtown. And Bob that is exactly the point—the Davis downtown businesses cannot compete for bulk sales with Target. Thus building a Target in Davis puts them at a competitive disadvantage.
Dunning also argues that Target will be “attracting those who would have shopped at an out-of-town Target anyway,” thus “having little or no effect on the health and attractiveness of downtown Davis… Trust me on this.” Nonsense.
Those who argue that all we are really doing is redirecting those shoppers from Davis who have to travel to Woodland are missing a point—Target would not build here and go through the heavy and expensive effort to win a ballot measure if they expected a mere transfer of the existing market.
Let’s think about this—first of all there are the one-time expenses including a $300,000 political campaign just get approval to build a Target. There are also the large construction costs. Finally, there are the ongoing costs of hiring additional employees to staff the new Target.
Nope, if Target just believed that the construction of the new store would transfer the Davis share of the Woodland Target market, they would not have built a new store. It would not make any sense for them to do so. So obviously, they are expecting to make more money by having a new Target store. And if they expect to make more money, they must be expecting to take market share from existing businesses and transfer it to Target because of the new convenience of shopping in Davis.
They won’t be taking away that business from the Mustard Seed or Union Bank, but they make take away business from downtown stores that actually sell similar products as Target—you know like the baby store, stationary and office supply stores, clothing shops, etc. How many businesses have overlapping products? Doesn’t Target believe they would capture a lot of this market share? They must otherwise they would again not expend the resources to build a new store.
It is true that for some of Davis, the Target in Woodland is not much further than the new Target will be, there is something about driving out of town that acts as a barrier to some shoppers. For instance, I go to Mace Avenue in Davis quite frequently but I rarely go to Woodland. And when I do go to Woodland it is usually on my way to the airport for a specific reason—departure or arrival.
At the end of the day it is hard to know what impact the new Target will have on downtown, but it is naïve and/or dishonest to suggest that the impact will be minimal since the same people who went out of town will be the ones who shop at the in-town Target. If that were actually the case, Target would have had no incentive to build a new location in Davis. We can assume that their marketing gurus determined that there would be substantial additional revenue to Target by opening a new location.
---Doug Paul Davis reporting
