“There’s a lot of potential here,” according to Clay Craft, portfolio director of Retail Strategies, Birmingham, Alabama.
That was the tag line on the final slide Craft presented to Hays city commissioners Thursday night in an update from the national firm hired in March 2018 to provide a retail recruitment and retention program for the city.
Craft said he likes to joke the company is the “Match.com of retail.”
“The pitch to locate in a town must be very specific to what that retailer is looking for,” he told the commission. Retail Strategies focuses on recruitment of national retailers which may also help draw smaller businesses to a town. The company is currently in contact with 9,703 retailers, according to Craft.
The 45-minute presentation about Hays was jam-packed with data, information, analytics, and the status of the town’s retail sector.
(Read more: Hays Post)