The Bluffton News

Bluffton Shoppers Still Cling
To Saturday Night Habit,
And Like It That Way

Customer Survey Shows 784 To 454
Prefer Saturday To Friday Shop Nights

By a top-heavy vote of 784 to 454, patrons of Bluffton's retail stores have indicated they prefer traditional Saturday night shopping to the trend in many towns toward Friday evening shopping instead.

This was to be the gist of a report made to the Bluffton Business Men's association Wednesday evening by Dr. Howard D. Raid's Bluffton college marketing class, which recently completed a survey on the question for the association.

Over a recent two-week period, customers entering the local stores were asked to check their evening shopping preferences on register sheets prepared for that purpose. The marketing class computations were based on a count taken from the store registrations.

Dr. Raid explained that there may have been some duplications in voting due to persons registering their choice at more than one store. Because of the heavy one-sided nature of the vote, however, these duplications were not checked out by the class.

The report comes on the heels of an announcement by the Retail Division of the Findlay Chamber of Commerce that beginning August 1, Findlay will switch from Saturday night to Monday night store openings. The decision was reached there by means of a ballot published in the newspaper in which 700 residents of the area expressed their opinions with 85 percent favoring Saturday store closings and remaining open on Monday evening.

Previously the merchants had been polled showing the majority favored the change.

The college marketing class also reported to the merchants on the results of a market area survey conducted at the same time.

A sample plotting of the homes of 579 rural customers showed an unusually even distribution of customers on all sides of town. The number of customers south and east of Bluffton surprised many observers who have felt that trade was more heavily developed westwardly toward Pandora. The map showed an appreciable number of customers in the Lafayette and Ada area and as far east as Arlington.

There was a marked sparsity of Bluffton customers north of Rawson and west of Rockport.

Individual businesses varied greatly, the report showed. One store plotted practically all of its rural customers west of town, apparently neglecting the market on the other side.