Does walk by traffic count?

One of the things Don and I considered when we first looked at Firewheel Town Center was the "walk by traffic." As an open air mall, it's pretty cool that we can see cars drive by and folks going from one end of the mall to the other. I know that some things to consider before leasing commercial retail property include population, median income, cars that drive major roads by the business, and so on, but for us, we wanted to look at potential new customers. That does not mean we do not rely on our customers of long standing! They keep us afloat, but one of the main reasons we chose to move out of the flea market was because new customers were NOT coming in.

We moved into the store the week before Thanksgiving to give us a shot at Black Friday and the holiday buying season. Business was good, but what we wanted was a fair shake at people coming into the store, looking around, and even if not buying on the first trip in, having the potential for a return visit. What we have determined thus far is that we do not get that much walk in business. We are sandwiched between two major restaurants and a block from the AMC theatre and Dick's Sporting Goods, so people are on the way somewhere, and they do not walk in our door.

Why is that? A big reason could be that we do not yet have a giant sign on the building. The catch to that is we are only here temporarily--until we get a permanent store, we do not want to spend $2500-3500 (conservative estimate) for a sign when we would then have to pay to have it moved--and hope it fits the specs of the new building. So, I am trying to get the word out through this blog, through Facebook, through email, and through word of mouth.