Rook's Comics and Games

Last week I talked about some demographics data for the area surrounding Rook's. This week I want to compare that data to the demographics of a successful store in California. It is interesting to look at other businesses to see how their physical location might help or hurt their business. For Rook's, this is much more of a question of curiosity as I am not planning on any major changes of location. However, for a new business just starting, finding stores that are successful and trying to relate that to potential location demographics can be a great help.
 
First off, here is the link to the demographics data for the store in Concord, California. The first thing to compare is the population within a five mile radius. The California store has 186,437 people living in that area. This is a lot higher than the 40,408 that live here within Bozeman. We stipulated last time that because people in Montana are used to driving long distances, a 5 mile radius was appropriate to measure our available customers. This might not be the case in California. It might be more appropriate to look at the population within 3 miles instead. For Concord, that number is 101,967 people; still a significantly higher number than here in Bozeman. The next data to look at is the daytime population compared to the resident population. In Concord, the daytime population is 132,387 and 242,906 for the 3 and 5 mile radius. This seems to be a large increase and probably indicates that this area of Concord has retail and office destinations in it. So as far as population, Concord has 2.5 to 4.5 times the number of people visiting the area in the daytime. Bozeman's daytime population is only 54,061. Not a very large increase from the 40,408 that actually live here. Realistically, this means that Concord's available customer base is approximately 4.5 larger than ours here in Bozeman.
 
The next thing we looked at was median age. The median age in Concord, at a 3 mile radius is 43. This is higher than ours but still seems to be acceptable for a game store. The two larges age groups for Concord were 40-44 and 45-49. This is a much higher age than Bozeman's two largest population groups of 21-24 and 25-29. I don't know enough about our specific sales to tell if this is a good or bad thing. I should mean though that the average age of the customers at the Concord store is higher than ours. How that information equates to sales is hard to say.
 
The next thing is income. The median income in a 3 mile radius for Concord is $67,836. This goes up to $74,365 when we go out to five miles. To really compare these numbers we must adjust them for the cost of living. California has a high cost of living as compared to Montana. I don't have data specifically for Concord or Bozeman but adjusting incomes for the statewide cost of living as compared to Montana brings the Concord median income down to $51,487 within a 3 mile radius. Bozeman's 5 mile radius median income is a bit lower at only $43,976.
 
So, California seems like an easier place to make money in the game store market. Is this a surprise? There are more people in Concord, no surprise there. I was surprised by how many more people, however. Remember, we are looking at a fairly small area, 28 to 78 square miles. I think this is a reflection of how concentrated populations are in Montana. I expected the age difference to happen. Concord is not a college town so they probably have a more normal mix of ages. The higher income in Concord also surprised me a little. I thought it would be a little higher but $7,000 in additional income can make a lot of difference. I am still happy with owning a game store in Bozeman because I love living here, but from a purely economic stand point, it does seem like a larger population area with a higher income would be a better investment.