When students, one of the largest crowds of consumers in the East Lansing area, go home for the summer, many local businesses near MSU’s campus are forced to try and find new ways to stay profitable throughout the slow summer months.
Last summer, a number of local businesses like Firehouse Subs and What Up Dawg, closed their doors, no doubt because of the lack of business.
For the second year in a row, employees from the Grand River Barber Company will head to the Electric Forest Festival, shop manager Jesse Medina said.
The festival, which takes place in Rothbury, Mich. near the end of June, has people campout throughout the weekend.12 barbers from the shop will offer free haircuts at the four-day festival.
The shop also uses the summer lull to work with Lansing-based charity, The Homeless Angels.
“We gave free haircuts to the homeless,” he said. “We weren’t making any extra money, but we were able to donate and get some publicity.”
Medina said many local businesses can’t handle the lean summer months.
“But we’ve been able to actually expand to a second location and hire more barbers at our East Lansing location,” he said “We’re kind of like a diamond in the rough.”
Other local businesses utilize digital tools, such as the apps Hooked and Zoomer, to boost their summer revenues.
“The Hooked app is basically a coupon system for East Lansing,” journalism junior and Pita Pit shift lead Casey Hull said.
Hull, a former State News employee, said restaurants offer limited-time discounts and deals that can only be used for orders placed inside the restaurant.
“So it picks up our foot traffic,” he said.
The Hooked app also allows the restaurant to anticipate surges in activity and thus staff itself more efficiently for potential rushes.
Zoomer supplants the traditional restaurant driver delivery system with one akin to the popular transportation service Uber.
“Rather than having a driver just sitting around, we have the driver come to us,” Hull said.
But he said the system isn’t perfect.
“It creates an upcharge, and the profit from deliveries is less than what it used to be,” Hull said.
Jeremy Plesco, owner of Fortress Comics and Games Inc., said the business tries a more social approach by putting on summer tabletop gaming leagues.
“We run a large number of different games like ‘Warhammer 40k,’ ‘Magic the Gathering,’” Plesco said.
He said a quarter of his revenue leaves when students leave East Lansing each summer.
As a result, cuts have to be made to keep the store financially viable.
“During the summer all of us lose hours, including myself,” he said. “We cut about two or three hours off each day’s schedule during the summer.”
Hull said the temporary loss of students and the resultant economic slowdown mimics the tourist dependent, seasonal nature of his hometown Petoskey but in a reversal of seasons.
“The population (of Petoskey) basically goes from 10,000, 12,000 to 20,000 in the summer,” he said. “Summer is when those businesses make money.”
