The Webster Progress-Times

A new study shows that retail sales in Webster County are less than half the sales activity average at the state level, according to the latest available estimates.

.Results of the study are detailed in an article in the July issue of "Mississippi's Business," a publication of the Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning's University Research Center Department of Forecast and Analysis.

Bob Neal, Ph.D., authored the article, titled "2002 Retail Sales Pull Factors, A New Approach." Information in the remainder of this report was taken from that article and an accompanying table of retail sales pull factors for Mississippi counties:

Pull factors estimate the market influence of a county's retail trade sector. These estimates of market influence are used to answer a number of questions concerning retail markets and consumer shopping patterns.

For 2002, the most recent year for which figures were available, the center estimated retail sales pull factors based upon personal income adjusted for differences in per-capita income. The article notes that retail purchases in a county depend on the level of affluence, as well as population and income.

A pull factor of 1.00, strictly speaking, says that per-capita retail sales or retail sales per dollar of personal income is the same at the county level as the state level. Retail purchases in the county are equal to the state average. This implies that the retail sales sector in that county just meets the needs of local residents (shoppers don't feel the need to shop outside the county much and retailers don't make many sales to shoppers outside the county).

A pull factor greater than 1.00 implies a county "pulls" retail sales in from outside the county. Conversely, a pull factor of less than 1.00 implies that the retail sector in a county is not meeting the needs of residents and that many retail purchases made by the county's residents are made outside their home county.

Results in the table included the estimates for 2002 and previously reported estimates for 2000 and 1998, which were estimated differently but interpreted the same as the new pull factors.

According to the results, Webster County was one of 29 counties with pull factors below 0.50. Its pull factor for 2002 was 0.40, a decrease from 0.46 in 2000 and 0.53 in 1998.

The study points out that the 2002 estimates appear reasonable for various reasons, including the fact that nearly all of the counties with retail sales pull factors lower than 0.50 were low-population counties (less than 15,000, such as Webster). Also, low pull-factor counties averaged about 0.02 retail businesses per resident, while high pull-factor counties averaged 50 percent more than them. Similarly, low pull-factor counties saw about $3,000 in retail sales per resident, while high pull-factor counties averaged more than 500 percent above that.

2002 pull factors in surrounding counties were: Calhoun, 0.44; Chickasaw, 0.61; Choctaw, 0.34; Clay, 0.61; Grenada, 1.31; Montgomery, 0.61; and Oktibbeha, 0.85.