Shopping gives back to Fort Collins
There’s more to benefit from shopping in Fort Collins than
purchasing the latest pair of jeans.
“When shoppers choose to shop in Fort Collins they protect their
way of life,” said Kelly DiMartino, communication and public
involvement coordinator for the city of Fort Collins. “When you
make a purchase here, there is 6.7 percent sales tax, 3 percent of
that goes directly to the city for things from the library to
police services.”
From city leaders, like Mayor Ray Martinez, to the General
Manager of Foothills Fashion Mall, Cynthia Eichler, many are doing
their part to show how far money spent in Fort Collins goes to
benefit everyone who lives here.
“It supports the very infrastructure of the city that you live
in,” Mayor Martinez said. “I think when people stop and think about
it they realize the impact, but it’s not an automatic
sometimes.”
Shopping in Fort Collins helps many merchants selling a wide
variety of products.
“We have 120 shops here and there is absolutely a lot of good
variety and value to be had,” Eichler said. “All of our merchants
would say they do close to 20 and 30 percent of their annual
business in the month of December. It’s a pretty amazing
amount.”
Students are a consumer market that merchants may not take for
granted.
“The CSU community is obviously a key element to our town,”
DiMartino said. “We recognize the students, many of them at least,
have a lot of spending power.”
Eichler agrees that students need to know the impact they
have.
“In essence we (Fort Collins) are your adopted community for at
least nine months of the year,” Eichler said. “This impacts the
streets you drive on and can control whether you or your neighbor
has a job or not.”
Special campaigns are even in works to let consumers know how
much their business matters. Shop Fort Collins First is one such
campaign. It combines the Chamber of Commerce, Foothills Mall, Fort
Collins Convention and Visitors Bureau and the Downtown Business
Association to let consumers know how what they spend can add
up.
“Shop Fort Collins First is a campaign whose goal is to make
people understand their shopping choices matter,” DiMartino said.
“If a person spends $500 holiday shopping it gives $15 back to the
city, while that doesn’t sound like a lot but for 120,000 people
that live in Fort Collins that adds up to $8.1 million. It’s a very
significant impact.”
Although it may be more time-consuming, most Fort Collins
merchants are confident they have everything a shopper could
need.
“We have a really good mix of specialty stores and chain
businesses,” Eichler said. “There’s a lot of variety here, people
just need to take some time to look around.”
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