east harlem retail experience report

EAST HARLEM RETAIL EXPERIENCE ANALYSIS

Sam Law

February 5th, 2015

Working with Local Businesses and the Community to enrich the qual i ty of l i fe on East 125th Street by engaging in creat ive init iat ives to improve the area

2 0 8 2 L e x i n g t o n Av e , 5 t h F l . , N Y, N Y 1 0 0 3 5 • t e l e p h o n e : 2 1 2 . 4 1 0 . 7 2 9 6 • f a x : 2 1 2 . 4 1 0 . 2 7 5 1 • w w w. n h e m a . c o m

http://www.nhema125th.com

http://www.nhema125th.com

Executive SummaryPurchasing clothes and groceries for your kids, filling prescriptions at the pharmacy, grabbing a bite to eat for lunch at a take-out restaurant and getting your hair cut at the neighborhood salon: these economic activities make up the rhythms of daily life for people who live and work in East Harlem. Products and services provided by businesses, from mom-and-pop corner stores to larger chains like IHOP or Pathmark, make up the shopping experience in East Harlem.

Since its inception in 2013, the New Harlem East Merchants Association (NHEMA) has strived to provide an organi-zation where business owners, developers, property owners, residents, workers and community members can col-laborate and improve the area for those who live and work in this diverse and vibrant community. While East Har-lem is made up of 4 distinct retail corridors where the majority of retail and services are located, NHEMA focuses specifically on the retail corridor on 125th street between 5th Avenue and 2nd Avenue. According to a 2011 retail analysis report 1, this corridor is the second most active retail corridor in East Harlem, accounting for 17% of the businesses in the four corridors.

While the 2011 retail analysis confirmed that 90% of residents in East Harlem shop regularly within one of East Har-lem’s four corridors, it also demonstrated through a detailed survey and expenditure analysis that local stores were unable to meet local demand leading to a businesses only capturing 30% of the 1.2 billion dollars East Harlem resi-dents annually spend.

Aside from this large amount of lost revenue for local business, this phenomenon of “out-shopping” indicates signifi-cant amounts of time, money and energy that residents expend in forgoing local retail opportunities. As a business association that is deeply concerned with the well-being and experience of both residents and businesses in East Har-lem, NHEMA wanted to better understand the forces that drive residents and workers away from shopping locally as well as to identify the areas in which businesses are currently succeeding. In order to accomplish this task, NHEMA created and distributed a Retail Experience Survey to residents and workers who in the areas that frequent the 125th Street Retail Corridor in order to gather both qualitative and quantitative data about customer experience in the area.

The results of this survey succeeded in this goal, providing both insight about the demographics of those who shop 125th street retail corridor and identifying a variety of concerns, from lack of diverse retail options to problems with an unsafe atmosphere, inadequate sanitation, crowded sidewalks and a large number of homeless, that contribute to the phenomenon of outshopping.

N e w H a r l e m E a s t M e r c h a n t s A s s o c i a t i o n ! E a s t H a r l e m R e t a i l E x p e r i e n c e A n a l y s i s

1 “East Harlem Retail Analysis” conducted by Paul Costa, fellow at Community Board 11 of Manhattan

Table of Contents

Introduction! 1

Demographics! 3

Overview of General East Harlem Demographics! 3

Demographic Results from Our Survey ! 3

Shopping Habits and Customer Experience! 6

Product and Services Purchasing Habits! 6

Customer Experience! 8

Outshopping! 9

Conclusion! 9

Problems! 10

Lack of Diverse Retail Option! 10

Dissatisfaction with the Area! 11

Other Miscellaneous Feedback! 12

Conclusion! 13

Bibliography! 14

Appendix 1: English Language Survey! 15


1

IntroductionPurchasing clothes and groceries for your kids, filling prescriptions at the pharmacy, grabbing a bite to eat for lunch at a take-out restaurant and getting your hair cut at the neighborhood salon: these economic activities make up the rhythms of daily life for people who live and work in East Harlem. Products and services provided by businesses, from mom-and-pop corner stores to larger chains like IHOP or Pathmark, make up the shopping experience in East Harlem.

Since its inception in 2013, the New Harlem East Merchants Association (NHEMA) has strived to provide an organi-zation where business owners, developers, property owners, residents, workers and community members can col-laborate and improve the area for those who live and work in this diverse and vibrant community. While East Har-lem is made up of 4 distinct retail corridors where the majority of retail and services are located, NHEMA focuses specifically on the retail corridor on 125th street between 5th Avenue and 2nd Avenue. According to a 2011 retail analysis report 2, this corridor is the second most active retail corridor in East Harlem, accounting for 17% of the businesses in the four corridors.

A stall at NHEMA’s weekly summer Farmer’s Market NHEMA member Princess Jenkins standing in front of her clothing

store, The Brownstone Boutique

This retail corridor on 125th Street does however face a series of significant problems due to a history of uneven de-velopment, investment and geographic distribution of services in the city. While the historical roots of these prob-lems are beyond the scope of this report, the problems themselves remain pertinent. These problems include every-thing from a disproportionate number of houseless people and drug abuse clinics in the area to a lack of diverse retail options and inadequate sanitation. This leads many residents and workers in the area to report being dissatisfied and to take some percentage of their shopping elsewhere. While the 2011 retail analysis confirmed that 90% of residents in


1

2 “East Harlem Retail Analysis” conducted by Paul Costa, fellow at Community Board 11 of Manhattan

East Harlem shop regularly within one of East Harlem’s four corridors, it also demonstrated through a detailed sur-vey and expenditure analysis that local stores were unable to meet local demand leading to a businesses only capturing 30% of the 1.2 billion dollars East Harlem residents annually spend.

Aside from this large amount of lost revenue for local business, this phenomenon of “out-shopping” indicates signifi-cant amounts of time, money and energy that residents expend in forgoing local retail opportunities. As a business association that is deeply concerned with the well-being and experience of both residents and businesses in East Har-lem, NHEMA wanted to better understand the forces that drive residents and workers away from shopping locally as well as to identify the areas in which businesses are currently succeeding. In order to accomplish this task, NHEMA created and distributed a Retail Experience Survey to residents and workers who = that frequent the 125th Street Re-tail Corridor in order to gather both qualitative and quantitative data about customer experience in the area.

In order to gather a representative sample of people who live and work in and around the 125th Street retail corridor, these surveys were distributed in both english and spanish at a variety of community events, public schools and local businesses near 125th Street. In total, 578 surveys were collected representing more than 2300 individuals and family members who shop (or in the case of children, are shopped for) in the 125th Street Retail Corridor. A majority of these people were residents of East Harlem, though we also received a large number of surveys from workers and students not from East Harlem.

This report breaks up the analysis of the survey results into three distinct chapters. The first section is a demographics section in which general demographics in East Harlem are discussed as well as a detailed analysis of the occupations, relationship to East Harlem of, and methods of transportation utilized by survey respondents. In the second section, we analyze data about the shopping habits and experience of the survey respondents. In the final chapter, we exam-ine the answers in the qualitative section of our report to look at the unfulfilled desires and complaints that survey respondents had in order to better understand the challenges that face businesses along the 125th Street retail corri-dor.


2

Demographics Overview of General East Harlem Demographics

While it is hard to get the latest demographics data about those who live and work in and around the 125th Street Retail Corridor in East Harlem, such information is relatively easy to find about about East Harlem as a whole.

According to the latest demographics data, there was a population of 122,538 people living in East Harlem in 2012. The median annual household income for a four person family was $31,537, just barely above the Center for Eco-nomic Opportunities poverty line of $31,039. Considering the general financial hardship faced by the majority of East Harlem residents, it is not surprising to find that the unemployment rate, at 31.2%, is 3 times higher than the city’s average for 2012 or that only 22.8% of East Harlem residents live in market-rate apartments.

Racially, East Harlem remains “Spanish Harlem” with just under half of its population identifying as hispanic. The second largest racial demographic in East Harlem is African American making up about 27% of the population. The remainder of the population is White and Asian, populations which, while small, doubled in size between 2000 and 2012. Significantly, 26.6% of the residents of East Harlem are foreign-born and while data is not collected about citi-zenship status, it is easy to infer from this number that a high number of residents without citizenship status creates additional barriers to a variety of services for many residents of East Harlem.

Demographic Results from Our Survey

To gain a representative sample of people who lived and worked around the 125th street retail corridor, we distrib-uted our survey in both english and spanish at a variety of community events, public schools and local businesses near 125th Street retail corridor. We received 578 surveys from individuals with an average family size of four. This meant that, including family members, our surveys gathered data from 2307 individuals who lived, worked or shopped in East Harlem. As can be seen in Chart 1, dependents were roughly evenly split between sons and daugh-ters with a small number of survey respondents listing grandchildren, step-children or other dependents.

CHART 1 : TYPE OF DEPENDENT

2%

48% 50%

Sons Daughters Other (Grandchildren, Step-Children etc.) N e w H a r l e m E a s t M e r c h a n t s A s s o c i a t i o n ! E a s t H a r l e m R e t a i l E x p e r i e n c e A n a l y s i s

3

In our survey, we also asked a question to ascertain the relationship of the survey respondent to East Harlem. As you can see from chart 2 below, the majority ( 55% of the respondents) were East Harlem Residents, while the remainder were workers (14% office workers, 25% other types of workers, including but not limited to teachers and service in-dustry workers and 6% were students). Given the sampling techniques used in our survey, we can say with some reliable certainty that the overwhelming majority of survey respondents lived or worked in the northern half of East Harlem, near the 125th Street retail corridor in zip codes 10026, 10027, 10029 or 10035.

CHART 2 : SURVEY RESPONDENTS RELATIONSHIP TO EAST HARLEM

In addition to soliciting responses about family size and occupation, we also asked about what types of transporta-tion respondents regularly utilized. According to 2012 data, 74.7% of East Harlem residents use public transportation as their primary means of transportation. As is indicated in chart 3, this observation is borne out in our data with the most frequent methods of transportation being used by respondents being public transportation options.

CHART 3 : METHOD OF TRANSPORTATION FREQUENCY CHART

Student6%Other Type of Worker

25%

Office Worker14%

Resident55%

Met

hod

of T

rans

pora

tion

0 100 200 300 400

Drive Bus Car Service/Taxi Subway Metro NorthWalk Access-a-Ride


4

As is clear from this data, the subway was the most frequently used transportation option (used by 349 respondants)

followed then by the bus (327), walking (233), car service or taxi (122), driving (75), Metro North (44) and by Access-a-Ride (14).

Our survey gathered a representative sample of those who live and work in East Harlem, providing a valuable set of data from which to judge overall customer shopping habits and experience as well as to provide insight into the problems facing consumers who utilize the 125th Street retail corridor.


5

Shopping Habits and Customer Experience In our survey, respondents were asked to weight the frequency of their purchase and use of various services and products in East Harlem. Due to our sampling technique, it is reasonable to infer that a significant amount of these products and services were purchased in the 125th Street retail corridor. It should be noted that due to limitations with the survey design, data was not collected about a variety of different types of products and services which peo-ple may frequent in East Harlem: from services like gyms, child care and copy shops to retail stores like stationary and hardware stores. In addition to purchasing habits, we had respondents rate their experience at business in East Harlem on a 1-5 scale. In aggregate, these responses tended towards an average rating of around 3, but general trends can be noted from these ratings. Finally, following up from the earlier expenditure analysis conducted by CB11 which indicated that East Harlem had a significant amount of outshopping, we asked respondents where else they were shopping.

Product and Services Purchasing Habits

As can be seen in Chart 4, the most commonly purchased products were food and groceries. As will be discussed later, this finding is significant as East Harlem is often cited as a “food desert” and, in a 2008 report by the New York Department of City Planning, was shown to have the dubious distinction of the highest levels of diet related diseases due to limited retail options.

CHART 4 : WEIGHTED PURCHASING FREQUENCY AT VARIOUS RETAIL OUTLETS

Following the purchasing of food and groceries, the most commonly frequented stores were clothing stores, beauty supply stores and wine/beer stores, followed by the catch-all “other”. While the small number of options on the sur-vey does unfortunately limit the scope of our analysis, it remains notable that the two most commonly purchased products were Food and Clothing, a finding which will be especially relevant in the next chapter on the survey’s qualitative findings.

Food/Groceries

Clothing

Beauty Supplies

Wine/Beer

Other

0 150 300 450 600


6

Along with purchases, survey respondents were also asked to indicate how frequency they used a variety of neigh-borhood services. While choices were limited, the most frequently used service was a pharmacy, followed by, in de-scending order, medical services, dental care , restaurants, barbershops or hair salons and take out places.

CHART 5 : WEIGHTED FREQUENCY OF UTILIZED SERVICES

As the survey only had a limited number of services to choose from, several wrote in other services they used in the

neighborhood. The two most common were printing services (especially among office workers) and gyms.

Medical

Dental

Pharmacy

Resturant

Take Out

Barbershop/Hair Salon

0 100 200 300 400


7

Customer Experience

Respondents were asked to rate their satisfaction with East Harlem stores on a 1-5 scale. The five categories examined were: Customer Service, Quality, Variety, Appearance and Hours. Due to the large sample of respondents and di-verging levels of satisfaction, the average in all these categories were relatively close together (between 3.3-3.6). De-spite the tendency of the averages of such a large population to approach the same number, some general observa-tions can be made.

CHART 5 : WEIGHTED FREQUENCY OF UTILIZED SERVICES

Firstly, numerous people wrote marginal comments stating that the “hours” of stores were open was 24/7 and that

the were extremely satisfied with that. This is satisfaction with the hours of operation is borne out in the data as the highest level of satisfaction was with store hours. Secondly, while we have not performed extensive statistical analy-sis, observing the data set shows that residents of East Harlem were more likely to report higher levels of satisfaction than people who only worked in the area. This indicates that people who had easier access to shopping elsewhere were less satisfied shopping in East Harlem.

0

1.25

2.5

3.75

5

Appearance Customer Service Quality Variety Hours


8

Outshopping

As stated in the introduction, the goal of this survey on customer experience was in part to better understand the forces which drive people who live and work in East Harlem near the 125th Street retail corridor to expend their time and energy to forgo local shopping opportunities in favor of shopping elsewhere. However, to accurately compare the non-local business and services were competing for business along the 125th Street corridor it was necessary to first identify where these areas were. For this reason, we included a question about the other locations people shopped. As can be seen in Chart 6, the majority of outshopping occurs in the Bronx, followed by the parts of East Harlem below 116th street and then in Central Harlem. New Jersey and other locations like Queens or Westchester make up the remaining 13% of outshopping.

CHART 6 : AREAS IN WHICH OUTSHOPPING OCCURS

Conclusion

Looking at the data from this section as a whole, we gain a picture of the purchasing habits and experiences of the average survey respondent. We find that they most likely to stay in the 125th Retail Corridor to buy food and clothing and use the pharmacy. They are generally satisfied with the customer service, quality of products, variety of prod-ucts, appearance of stores and hours of businesses of stores in East Harlem. However, they also are likely, according to the 2011 retail analysis conducted by CB11 to conduct a significant amount of their shopping elsewhere. Outshop-ping for the average respondent was most likely to occur in the Bronx, below 116th street or in Central Harlem.

Other4%

Below 116th31%

The Bronx34%

New Jersey9%

Central Harlem22%


9

ProblemsIntroduction

While quantitative data is helpful in answering general questions about the demographics and shopping habits of survey respondents, it fails to help us understand the root causes of phenomenon like revenue lost to outshopping. In other words, such data may tell us that people are shopping elsewhere, but it fails to tell us why. To resolve this prob-lem of explaining causation, we left several comment boxes on our surveys and received a wide array of different responses. Many saw these boxes as an opportunity to air grievances about the neighborhood or push for the creation of new businesses or services which should be available. Despite the clearly unfeasible nature of many of these pro-posals for an organization the size of NHEMA, looking at grievances as well as desires for certain businesses or serv-ices gives insight in to what drives people away from shopping in the 125th Street retail corridor and potentially serves as a starting point for businesses and organizations seeking to create a more thriving retail corridor.

Lack of Diverse Retail Option

Perhaps the most common use of the comment section was to complain about lack of retail options in East Harlem and to make suggestions of new stores. While people expressed their desire for everything from “boutiques” to big box stores like Walmart, the most common complaints were about a lack of options for food and clothing. Given that our survey has already shown that two categories are the most commonly frequented by people in East Harlem (see page 7 of this report) , the dissatisfaction with the current selection and a desire for more clothing and food retail speak to one very clear motivating factor that might be leading people to conduct their shopping elsewhere.

Food

As mentioned in the last chapter, East Harlem is often cited as one of New York City’s “food deserts”. Seven years ago, a report by the New York Department of City Planning found that East Harlem had the highest levels of diet related diseases due to limited retail options. While stores carrying a wide array of heathy food options like Wild Olive have opened in the intervening years and grocery stores like Pathmark do exist in the 125th Street Retail Corri-dor, the lack of healthy grocery options was the most common complaint we received with 66 respondents mention-ing this complaint. A smaller number of respondents specifically requested having a regular farmer’s market. How-ever, it was not just the lack of healthy grocery options that people complained about but also the lack of affordable groceries. Another common desire related to food was a frequent request for more supermarkets. Thus, it seems that the desire to find either, if not both, healthy and cheap groceries may be leading many from the 125th Street retail corridor to conduct their shopping elsewhere.

Clothing

Despite several surveys that explicitly mentioned The Brownstone Boutique as an exemplary store, one of the most common complaints was dissatisfaction with the number and type of clothing stores. As was the case with food, the desire for clothing stores was split between those who wanted more higher quality clothing stores (several mentioned that they wanted more “boutiques” and “high-fashion”) and those who wanted wanted more cheap clothing stores. Finally, a smaller number of surveys emphatically conveyed their dissatisfaction with the lack of children clothing stores, noting that there were none and that they were forced to travel elsewhere to purchase clothes for their kids. In general, the frequency of complaints about clothing stores or desires for new clothing stores speaks to the lack of di-versity both in quality, style and price of clothing available to customers in the 125th Street retail area.


10

Other Complaints about Retail Options

In addition to frustration about the lack of diverse food and clothing retail options, we also received many other sug-gestions of stores people wanted to see. Among the most common were large retail stores like WalMart, electronics stores, phone stores, bookstores and children toy stores. Additionally, many people expressed a desire for more stores owned by either Hispanic or African American business owners.

Dissatisfaction with the Area

East Harlem is an area that has long struggled with a variety of social issues that effect the quality of life and experi-ence of people living and working in the neighborhood. These social issues stem from a long history of failed or un-even development which have led to the simultaneous lack of investment in basic services and the disproportionate placement of services that other neighborhoods would eschew. These problems include everything from issues like those of poverty, lack of access to affordable housing, high rates of crime, long response times from emergency serv-ices, homelessness and inadequate sanitation.

“Safety”

Many survey respondents went so far as to assert that these social issues made them feel “unsafe”. This sense of inse-curity evidently is a factor driving residents to limit or conduct their shopping elsewhere. Many commented that they “feel uncomfortable going out at night” or feel that certain areas are too “sketchy” to go to. These cause of this insecurity however was multi-faceted cause: while some noted the prevalence of criminal activities and a large tran-sient population, others cited police harassment and racial profiling by security and store owners as itself leading to their sense of insecurity. This indicates that a solution to the problem of a lack of security in the neighborhood cannot be solved by reliance on additional police presence or security alone as this would not necessarily benefit all resi-dents.

Homelessness and Loitering

The two most common complaints about East Harlem were that the sidewalks “feel crowded” with people loitering and that there is an over-abundance of homeless panhandlers. The root cause of the large transient population in East Harlem is the fact that the M35 bus which takes thousands of homeless people to shelter’s on Ward’s Island leaves from 125th and Lexington. This attracts a large number of homeless people to the area and places an undue burden on the residents of East Harlem.

Drug and Alcohol Addiction

Integrally connected to the problem of homelessness and loitering is the extensive number of people ad-dicted to drugs and alcohol who are in the area. While addressing drug and alcohol addiction was a common theme across many surveys, the specific measures suggested actually diverged. Many people wrote that they wanted “more programs and serv-ices for drug addicts”, however other people saw the high concentration of these services in the area


11

as the problem. One woman wrote, in all caps, “CLOSE THE METHADONE CLINIC” (Harlem East Life Plan pic-tured above is one such clinic). Clearly, steps taken to treat drug and alcohol addiction should both treat the issue as a public health problem while also making sure that East Harlem does not bear an undue burden in the city of programs and services for drug addicts.

Sanitation

Another common complaint related to the area was the lack of sanitation services. Many people simply wrote: “Smells bad” or “clean up all the trash”. Public urination is one significant casual factor. The lack of adequate sanita-tion clearly effects how people perceive the desirability of shopping in the area and contributes to an unfounded association between the lack of sanitation on the street and the quality of the stores.

Other Miscellaneous Feedback

Paying Attention to the Youth

As was discussed in the demographics section, the average survey respondent had two kids. Often, however, they had more children or were a single parent. As a result, many survey respondents expressed their dissatisfaction for goods and services that specifically cater to the needs of youth and their parents. Many surveys expressed a desire for “children’s clothing stores” or places to “buy toys for kids”. However, in addition to more children-oriented retail options, many people also commented on the lack of services for youth. One of our top 3 complaints was the lack of affordable child-care services, whether those services be day-care or after-school programs. People also expressed a desire for other services for older youth, including but not limited to: job training, social centers, college-preparation workshops, drop-in or extracurricular tutoring, youth employment services and teen-friendly nightlife.

Promotions and Sales

Many people expressed a desire for more in-store promotion, sales or coupons. Such promotions and sales have been found to have a strong effect in building customer loyalty and may be an effective means to curb the phenomenon of “outshopping”

Other Services

In addition to all of the complaints listed above, we received many requests for specific services or service-oriented businesses. These included requests for libraries, mental health centers, domestic violence shelters, free theatre, meet-ing and community spaces, gyms or other recreational opportunities, job fairs or training, affordable housing, hospi-tals and urgent-care or walk-in clinics. People also expressed desires for businesses which provide services including more “sit-down” and “take-out” dining options, movie theaters, pharmacies, cobblers, dry cleaners and floral shops.


12

ConclusionFollowing up on the 2011 report that indicated that East Harlem store only were capturing 30 precent of revenue from residents, our Retail Experience Survey results suggest some of the reasons why this phenomenon of “outshopping” is occurring. We found that these reasons vary from problems with the area more generally like the high rates of homelessness and lack of adequate sanitation to dissatisfaction with perceived retail options, especially a lack of stores selling food and clothing.

What NHEMA is Already Doing

As an organization committed to improving the area for those who live and work in this diverse and vibrant community, NHEMA has already been taking steps to address many of the main problems people found in the area. In addition to a variety of community events, NHEMA has two programs that directly address some of the main con-cerns people have with the 125th Street retail corridor.

The first program is an innovative collaboration with the Association of Community Employment Programs for the Homeless which hires homeless individuals to help clean up the trash in the 125th Street retail corridor. Not only does this help deal with the issues concerning garbage and sanitation mentioned by numerous survey respondents but it also provides employment for homeless people, reducing loitering and panhandling in the area.

The second program is the weekly Thursday farmers market run by NHEMA that runs July through November started in 2014. As NHEMA prepares for the second year of the farmers market, we intend to take seriously concerns about lack of diverse food options in the neighborhood, providing high quality healthy food, conventional produce and accepting diverse payment options including food stamps.

Next Steps

Moving forward, there are many ways that NHEMA can work with merchants to address concerns raised in this re-tail experience analysis. These range from creating promotional materials which will raise awareness of the diverse goods and services that already exist in the neighborhood, working with developers to address the lack of certain goods and services, working with the city to address issues of sanitation and homelessness to organizing family-friendly community events that contribute to a strong sense of place and encourage residents to feel comfortable shopping in their own neighborhood.


13

BibliographyCosta, Paul. East Harlem Retail Analysis. Rep. New York: Community Board 11.

Department of City Planning. "Going to Market: New York City's Neighborhood Grocery Store and Supermar-ket Shortage.".

NYU Furman Center. New York City’s Housing & Neighborhoods in 2013..

Office of The Mayor. The CEO Poverty Measure 2005-2012. Rep. The Office of the Mayor, 30 Apr. 2014. Web. 1 Feb. 2015.


14

Appendix 1: English Language Survey


15


16

Busin

ess,

Eco

nom

ic D

evel

opm

ent a

nd N

eigh

borh

ood

Prod

ucts

and

Ser

vice

s 7.

Do

you

feel

the

busi

nes

ses

serv

e yo

u as

a c

omm

unit

y m

embe

r? H

ow s

o? H

ow c

an th

ey

impr

ove?

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

___

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

___

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

___

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

__

8. P

LEA

SE R

ATE

AN

D C

OM

MEN

T O

N T

HE

FOLL

OW

ING

1-5.

1 be

ing

very

poo

r an

d 5

bein

g ex

cell

ent

Cus

tom

er s

ervi

ce

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

_ Q

ualit

y of

pro

duct

s et

c.__

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

V

arie

ty o

f Pr

oduc

ts__

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

A

ppea

ranc

e of

St

ores

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

_ St

ore

Hou

rs o

f O

pera

tion_

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

_ O

ther

C

omm

ents

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

__

9. H

ow d

o yo

u an

d yo

ur fa

mil

y tr

avel

mos

tly?

D

rive

____

_ Bu

s __

__

Taxi

/Car

Ser

vice

___

_

Subw

ay _

___

M

etro

Nor

th _

__

Wal

k __

___

A

cces

s A

Rid

e __

__

10. P

leas

e sh

are

any

com

men

ts y

ou m

ay h

ave

abou

t sh

oppi

ng

on E

ast 1

25th

Str

eet a

rea

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

___

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

___

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

___

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

___

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

___

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

___

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

____

___

Than

k yo

u ta

kin

g th

e ti

me

to p

arti

cipa

te in

our

sur

vey

toda

y!

Sin

cere

ly,

New

Har

lem

Eas

t Mer

chan

ts A

ssoc

iati

on In

c. (N

HEM

A)

For m

ore

info

rmat

ion

abou

t NH

EMA

ple

ase

visi

t our

web

site

w

ww

.NH

EMA

125t

h.co

m o

r Te

xt N

HEM

A to

727

27

NH

EMA

125t

h

@

NH

EMA

125t

h

N

HEM

A12

5


17

This survey and report was made possi-ble by a generous grant from New York

Small Business Services

east harlem retail experience report

Documents