COLUMBUS, Ohio – The retail sector of the Franklin County economy, which not only provides jobs but also the sales taxes that fund the county’s service, safety and welfare agencies, is recovering from the recession, but the changing landscape of the industry worldwide means it will probably never return to where it was bre-2007.
According to the Columbus Chamber’s 2014 Franklin County Retail Report, unveiled Friday at the Franklin County Retail Summit retail employment showed a 0.8 percent uptick in 2012 and 1.7 percent increase in 2013 and now accounts for 68,349 workers.
However, while the overall taxes collected by the county rose 3.9 percent last year, the amount from retail-based sales fell 1.9 percent, continuing a trend where retail comprises a smaller share of revenue as brick-and-mortar stores lose ground to Internet-based e-commerce,
Vehicle sales and clothing stores have shown four consecutive years of growth, according to Jung Kim, the Columbus Chamber’s research director, who authored the report.
A six-fold increase in e-commerce since 2000, cited by the U.S. Census Bureau, has shifted employment from stores and toward logistics-related businesses like trucking and warehousing, the report says. Kim says some of the loss in retail-related sales tax revenue could be attributable to the seasonal nature of these activities.
While employment increased, vacancy rates decreased in Franklin and the surrounding six counties in central Ohio, indicating that brick-and-mortar retailers are opening for business, though Kim says the increase has not had an impact on rents or construction. The most favorable retail real estate investments appear to be in “convenience retail” – grocery store and gas stations — and “destination retail” – such as malls.
Kim says the demographics in Franklin County are becoming more retail-friendly with the increase in the number of families without children and, therefore, more disposable income.
From 2000 to 2012, the number of households in Franklin County with one or more children increased just 1.4 percent from 133,515 to 135,430, Kim said. Most of the net household growth in the county came from non-traditional households, such as single people and couples without children.