Garnett ranks high in retail trade (Article)

Garnett ranks high in retail trade according to the 13th annual report of city pull factors in Kansas. The report was just released by Kansas State University Research and Extension community development economist David Darling and assistants Mark seitz and Ravi Katragadda.

According to Darling, a city trade pull factor measures a community’s balance of retail trade as reflected by per capita sales tax collections. Pull factors indicate how well a community is attracting and holding onto retail business. A pull factor above 1.00 indicates the community is attracting more business than it is losing.

Put another way, if every person living in a city only shops locally, the city’s pull factor would be 1.00, even without attracting outside customers. But recognizing that citizens will at some point shop outside their hometown, cities must attract visitors to replace dollars that “leak” from the community with “captured” dollars.

The K-State study included 116 Kansas communities, or all of the cities in Kansas listed as first or second class (a historic designation).

The little giants- a term Darling has used for towns with a population less than 5,000, a pull factor over 1.00 and a full compliment of retail business to be a trade center- include Holton, 1.97 pull factor; Paola, 1.69; Marysville,1.53; Goodland, 1.25; Garnett, 1.21; Beloit, 1.16; Sabetha, 1.11; Hiawatha, 1.08; Phillipsburg, 1.06; Norton 1.04; and Clay Center, 1.02.