A Study on Downtown Life in Elon, North Carolina

Conducted By:
Josie Baenen, Sarah Gombos, Josie Malone & Lauren Rodgers
Background

Up until 2011, the area now known as the Town of Elon, North Carolina

was named the Town of Elon College - indicative of how intertwined Elon

University’s history and the surrounding communities’ history have been for

over a hundred years. Home to a university of 6,000 undergraduate students,

the Town of Elon became an accredited Main Street community in 2020. The

town’s main commercial district, referred to as downtown Elon, can be found

at the intersection of North Williamson Ave. and West Lebanon Ave.

downtown Elon is adjacent to Elon University’s campus, providing a small

town charm with its local stores and eateries.

The Town of Elon wants to determine the factors to increase

commercial activity in downtown Elon. In order to accomplish this, they must

conduct research to understand the habits and desires of their primary target

market: Elon University students. The core objective of this research study is

to determine the sentiments Elon University students have towards the

existing businesses downtown and what they hope to see change. With the

knowledge gained from this study, the proprietors, future entrepreneurs and

town officials can create future strategies to engage students and increase

commercial traffic downtown.

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Methodology

We conducted our mixed-methods primary research using an online

survey through Qualtrics. Our 12 question survey used open ended questions,

multiple choice questions and also asked participants to use a Likert scale. All

of our participants were undergraduate students at Elon University and

presumably aged 18-24 years of age. This study is an example of a

convenience sample where we garnered our participants from sororities and

fraternities, group chats, classmates and of course some individual

messaging. There was a 31% response rate and a sampling error of +-9.8%. We

also can report a confidence interval of 95% for our study.

When sharing our survey, we provided brief background information on

our study as well as informing our participants that it would only take 5

minutes to complete. We received exactly 100 responses to our survey using

an anonymous link.

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Research Questions

In order to gage Elon University student’s sentiments about downtown Elon,

we presented the following research questions.

1. Which businesses in downtown Elon are students the most and

least inclined to patronage?

2. Are students aware of all the businesses in downtown Elon?

3. Which students (demographics) are most and least aware of the

various businesses in downtown Elon?

4. Are students more likely to spend money to support small

businesses?

5. How relevant of a deciding factor is price when Elon students are

considering visiting downtown locations?

6. What do students want to see downtown that they don’t currently?

7. Are students more inclined to frequent shops that serve alcohol?

8. What do students utilize these shops for? Simply

purchasing/consuming or using them as gathering locations?

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 These research questions were created to understand the sentiments

Elon students have towards the current businesses in Downtown Elon. We

have also developed the two following hypotheses based on our

understanding of downtown Elon’s goals as well as our personal and

objective understanding of the demographic that is Elon students:

1. If students are not satisfied with downtown Elon, then they will be

less likely to spend a lot of time there.

2. The less amount of time students have been at Elon, the more

satisfied they will be with the businesses located downtown.

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Survey Questions

1. How familiar are you with the restaurant/retail options downtown

Elon has to offer?

a. Very Familiar

b. Familiar

c. Not Very Familiar

d. Not At All Familiar

2. How satisfied are you with the bar and nightlife options in

downtown Elon?

a. Very Satisfied

b. Satisfied

c. Not Very Satisfied

d. Not At All Satisfied

3. How likely are you to use the downtown Elon business as a place to

meet and hang out with your peers?

a. Very Likely

b. Likely

c. Not Very Likely

d. Not At All Likely

4. If new businesses were implemented downtown, would you prefer

them to be chains or small businesses?

a. Chain businesses

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 b. Local businesses

5. On a student budget, how affordable do you think the businesses in

downtown Elon are?

a. Extremely affordable

b. Very affordable

c. Not affordable

d. Extremely unaffordable

6. How often do you purchase something/frequent a shop in the

downtown area?

a. Every day

b. A few times a week

c. A few times a month

d. Once a month or less

e. Never

7. Which eatery do you most frequent downtown? (Likert Scale)

a. The Root

i. Very often, often, not very often, never

b. Tangent

i. Very often, often, not very often, never

c. Pandoras

i. Very often, often, not very often, never

d. Magerks

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 i. Very often, often, not very often, never

e. Subway

i. Very often, often, not very often, never

8. Which retail location do you frequent most downtown? (Likert

Scale)

a. All That Jas

i. Very often, often, not very often, never

b. Simply Oak

i. Very often, often, not very often, never

c. Barnes and Noble

i. Very often, often, not very often, never

9. Select the statement that best explains your sentiments about

downtown Elon.

a. I wish downtown Elon was more like other college towns, for

example, Chapel Hill.

b. I love downtown Elon, it was a selling point when selecting which

university I wanted to attend.

c. I think downtown Elon could be improved, but I don’t care very

much about if it did or not.

d. I don’t have a preference if downtown Elon changed or not, I

wouldn’t go there anyway.

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10. What type of establishments would you like to see more of

downtown?

a. Nightlife/Bars

b. Restaurants

c. Retail stores

d. Coffee shops

11. If you could suggest any change to Downtown Elon what would it

be? (Open-Ended Response)

12. What year are you at Elon?

a. First Year

b. Sophomore

c. Junior

d. Senior

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Detailed Findings

QUESTION 1

Our first question was used to gain insight into how familiar students

are with the options available in downtown Elon. This is an important

question to ask as it will help us better understand how knowledgeable

students are about what is available to them on campus. We found that the

largest percentage of students (47%) were extremely familiar with what is

offered downtown. Following closely behind with the second largest student

percentage (37%) is very familiar with the establishments that are offered

downtown. Overall, 98% of respondents were at least somewhat familiar with

what businesses are in downtown Elon. Only 2% of respondents said that they

were not at all familiar with downtown Elon. Knowing this information, we

were curious whether or not a students’ year at Elon played a role in their

familiarity with the downtown options.

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 We ran a crosstab of students’ year at Elon with their familiarity of the

businesses in downtown Elon. Based on this crosstab, we can conclude that

year at Elon has a high correlation with how familiar students are with the

downtown area. Based on the data, seniors are the most familiar with

downtown options whereas the freshman respondents made up all the “not

familiar at all” sections.

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QUESTION 2

While we know that students are familiar with what downtown has to

offer, students are not extremely satisfied with the options as shown in the

chart above. Only 2% of respondents feel extremely satisfied with the bar and

nightlife options in downtown Elon. This is by far the smallest share of

responses, reflecting student’s disappointment with downtown life. 44% of

respondents feel “somewhat satisfied” and 42% of respondents feel

“somewhat dissatisfied.” This proves that there are changes needed to be

made to improve student life downtown.

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 We ran a crosstab of questions two and six in order to get information

on whether or not students’ satisfaction with downtown Elon plays a role in

how frequently they spend time downtown. Based on this crosstab, it is clear

that students who are “extremely satisfied” with downtown Elon nightlife

options (50%) do have a tendency to frequent these places much more than

people who are not satisfied. This crosstab does play a role in one of our

hypotheses as we predicted that if students are not satisfied with downtown

Elon, then they will be less likely to spend a lot of time there. However, as seen

in this crosstab, students who are “extremely dissatisfied” with downtown

Elon nightlife options do not frequent these places every day, but they do still

attend these establishments either a few times a week (25%) or a few times a

month (41%). This crosstab is showing us that students who are dissatisfied

with downtown Elon nightlife don’t frequent these establishments every day,

yet they do still attend a few times a week or a few times a month despite

being dissatisfied with what is offered to them.

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QUESTION 3

Here, it is evident that students use downtown Elon as a place to gather

with peers. More than 30% of students said that they are “extremely likely” to

meet friends downtown, and over 45% of students said they were at least

“somewhat likely” to do this activity. While there are various retail locations

downtown, many of the establishments currently are restaurants or coffee

shops. This shows that whatever future businesses are implemented

downtown should be suitable to be a gathering setting for students.

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QUESTION 4

This graph shows that the overwhelming majority (89%) of students

want local businesses in the downtown area. If new businesses are

implemented in the downtown area, the businesses that will be most

successful are local businesses. It is evident that students are not looking to

go downtown for popular, nationwide restaurants. Students appreciate

supporting local businesses and having unique spots to go to when they are

at Elon. When planning for future establishments, local businesses should be

given priority as they will attract more students.

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QUESTION 5

The majority of students who responded to the survey believe that the

downtown area is affordable. 59% of respondents believe that downtown Elon

is either extremely affordable or very affordable. While the remaining 41%

believe that the businesses downtown are unaffordable. Because of this data,

we decided to run a crosstab to see if there was any relationship between

price and what type of business students preferred.

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 We then ran a crosstab to determine what the relationship between the

type of businesses students prefer and how affordable a student thinks

downtown is. It is clear from our data that students who think that the shops

downtown are unaffordable are more likely to want chain restaurants

implemented downtown. When considering new options to advance the

downtown area, we must keep in mind that many students are cost oriented

and need options that are suitable for their needs as well. While many

students are fine spending more money if it means they are supporting a

small business, some students will need cheaper options as a way to satisfy

everyone. Having a range of options will allow for more students to shop

downtown on a more frequent basis.

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QUESTION 6

From this data, we can conclude that students go to downtown Elon

relatively frequently. The plurality of respondents (36%) said that they go

downtown at least a few times a month. 27% of respondents said they go

multiple times per week, and 6% said they go downtown every single day.

This shows that downtown Elon is an integral part of student life on campus.

While these numbers are relatively high already, we want to continue this

pattern and grow the number of students that go downtown more often.

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 We ran a crosstab to determine whether our hypothesis “the less

amount of time students have been at Elon, the more satisfied they will be

with the businesses located downtown.” Based on this crosstab, we can

report that this hypothesis was proven incorrect. Exactly 50% of freshmen

students reported being somewhat dissatisfied with the nightlife options in

downtown Elon. They also had the highest percentage of being extremely

dissatisfied with the options downtown Elon has to offer. Exactly 50% of

seniors reported feeling somewhat satisfied with the downtown Elon options,

which was the highest percentage and one of the most positive options. 9.5%

of juniors reported being extremely satisfied with the nightlife options

downtown, and were the only class to do so. This does not line up with our

hypothesis as we predicted that underclassmen would have been more

satisfied with the options downtown in comparison to upperclassmen. We

assumed that seniors would be sick of the limited options downtown having

been at Elon for numerous years. We can see that overall, students tend to be

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relatively dissatisfied with the options downtown Elon has to offer, which

should be something looked at in the future.

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QUESTION 7

Our seventh question was placed as a way to gauge student interest in

specific eateries downtown. Based on this table, students (33%) frequent

Magerks “very often” while Tangent is a close second with 30% of students

attending this eatery “often.” It is clear that students do not like Subway as

77% of respondents said that they “never” frequent Subway for a meal. This

reflects the same sentiment that students want to support local businesses

as opposed to chain restaurants. This consideration will be needed when

thinking about future plans for the downtown area.

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QUESTION 8

Our eighth question aimed to gauge respondents interest in the

specific retail locations that are offered in the downtown area of Elon. Based

on this table, it is shown that none of the retail locations are frequented “very

often.” Barnes and Noble and All That Jas are the retail locations that are

visited the most as 19% of respondents say they “often” frequent All that Jas as

well as 19% of respondents say they “often” frequent Barnes and Noble. It is

clear from this table that Cynthia Huffines and Associated Interior Design

Studio and 102 North Boutique Salon are the least frequented retail locations

as approximately 93% of the students said that they “never” frequent Cynthia

Huffines and Associated Interior Design Studio. Students clearly don’t also

frequent 102 North Boutique Salon as approximately 91% of students said that

they “never” frequent the salon.

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QUESTION 9

As shown in this table, the majority of respondents (55%) wish that

downtown Elon was more like Chapel Hill and other college towns. This shows

the sentiment that many students are looking for the downtown Elon area to

be improved. Elon’s downtown area is far smaller than Chapel Hill and has

less of a variety of shop options. We also see that 40% of respondents strongly

disagreed with the statement “I don’t have a preference if downtown Elon

changed or not. I wouldn’t go there anway.” This exemplifies the fact that

students care deeply about what goes on in the surrounding area and would

like to see improvements to downtown.

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QUESTION 10

Clearly, the majority of students would like new nightlife and bars to be

implemented downtown. When planning for future establishments, this

should be given priority and will be the most influential thing to attract the

most number of students. There are currently already two coffee shops

downtown (Acorn and Oak House) and students appear to be satisfied with

those options as only 2% of respondents said they would add more coffee

shops downtown. Also, as we found in other parts of this study, students

prefer places where they are able to gather with their friends. So this lines up

with this chart as nightlife, bars and restaurants are all gathering places.

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QUESTION 11

Our eleventh question was an open-response question in which we

wanted some original ideas from respondents on what they would love to see

in downtown Elon. Based on the word cloud, it is clear that a majority of

students would like to see more nightlife as well as more affordable options in

the downtown area. Below are the top six quotes that we pulled from our

respondents. These quotes represent the general sentiment of what students

would like to see in downtown Elon.

● Top Quotes:

1. “More college focused businesses and retails with accompanying

prices.”

2. “I would want us to have more retail options and more fun sit

down restaurants. I’d love a good brunch or bagel place.”

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3. “More affordable because not many students have plus 7. It sucks

for basic meal plans because it’s all out of pocket money.”

4. “Don’t add big chains, part of the Elon appeal is that we don’t

have tons of tourists! It’s a selling point on tours I give of Elon!”

5. “I think that above the furniture store there could be a cute

rooftop restaurant/bar/cafe”

6. “More nightlife for sure. Ideally removing the salon and furniture

store would be best.”

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QUESTION 12

Here, we can see the distribution of students who participated in our

survey. From this, it is evident that the plurality of students who took part in

this study were seniors (48%). We would have liked to have an even

distribution of classes (25%), however, this did not occur. We still have all

grades represented and were able to have 31% of the respondents be

underclassmen despite the fact that all researchers are upperclassmen.

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Implications/Knowledge Gained

The objective of this survey was to determine what factors influence

commercial traffic in downtown Elon in order to increase University student

patronage. Our survey analysis has shown that students, while very familiar,

are largely not satisfied with the selection of restaurants and shops currently

present. While year in school and factors relating to price were of some

importance to student patronage decisions, the type of businesses offered

was significantly more important. Our survey respondents expressed a

negative sentiment towards chain establishments and high-end boutiques,

as well as a very strong desire for additional late-night establishments.

Altering the landscape of downtown Elon to include additional nightlife

businesses should increase its attractiveness to student customers, as long as

the shopping area remains true to its small, local business feel.

Data showed that awareness of the businesses in downtown Elon is

very high, but the level of satisfaction does not nearly reach this same

consensus. Therefore, any strategic campaign intended to increase traffic in

downtown Elon should be focused on improving the products/services

available rather than being promotion or awareness based.

Of these available products/services, respondents tended to be

relatively homogeneous in terms of their preferences and habits. One of our

research questions focused on which businesses students are the most and

least inclined to patronage. The result of this research question is clear:

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students strongly prefer local eateries such as Magerks, Tangent, and

Pandoras over chain restaurants like Subway, and they almost never utilize

downtown retail locations such as Simply Oak or the Design studio. This is

further confirmed by the data regarding another research question: Are

students more likely to spend money to support small businesses? With 89%

of respondents preferring additional locally-owned businesses to chains, it is

obvious that the answer is yes. With only 8/100 responses indicating a desire

for additional retail stores downtown, a campaign aimed at increasing

commercial traffic downtown should therefore focus on local restaurants and

bars rather than chain restaurants or retail locations.

Another of our important research questions dealt with how important

of a factor price was for Elon students when considering visiting downtown

locations. Responses were clustered in the middle, with the majority

considering downtown Elon’s businesses to be very affordable, and very few

considering them to be extremely unaffordable. By cross-tabbing two of our

survey questions, we find that 66.7% of those who found downtown Elon’s

prices to be extremely unaffordable also said they never purchase from those

businesses. In contrast, of those who consider downtown Elon’s prices to be

extremely affordable, 50% shop there a few times a week and 50% shop there

a few times a month. Those who find the prices very affordable or not

affordable also shop there a few times a month. This seems to indicate that

for a very small group of students (3%), price is an extremely important factor

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when considering visiting downtown locations, but for the remainder of

students it isn’t a very relevant factor. Therefore, initiatives to boost patronage

in downtown Elon should be most effective when targeted towards publics

who are less concerned with price than they are with other factors, even if

that may mean leaving out a small audience segment.

Finally, our research question of “What do students want to see

downtown that they don’t currently” can be summed up in one word: Alcohol.

This is made clear by the results of several sections of our survey. Only 2% of

respondents feel extremely satisfied with the bar and nightlife options in

downtown Elon. 63% of respondents reported that they want to see more

nightlife and bars in downtown Elon. By conducting a crosstab we found that

the more dissatisfied a student was with the selection of businesses in

downtown Elon, the more likely they were to desire additional bars

downtown. Our free response survey question asking for suggestions for

downtown Elon prompted many nightlife-related answers - here are just a

few:

- “I think that above the furniture store there could be a cute

restaurant/bar/cafe”

- “More nightlife for sure. Ideally removing the salon and furniture store

would be best”

- “More bars/restaurants that become bars at night”

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 This research indicates that an increase in bars or nightlife options in

downtown Elon would likely lead directly to increased patronage by students.

A successful PR campaign for downtown Elon is most likely to grow out of

this strong student desire.

In conducting data analysis, it became clear that both of our initial

hypotheses were incorrect. The first of these was “If students are not satisfied

with downtown Elon, then they will be less likely to spend a lot of time there.”

In running crosstabs of survey questions, it became clear that while students

who are “extremely satisfied” with downtown Elon’s options may be the most

frequent visitors to these establishments (50%), those who rate themselves as

“extremely dissatisfied” still visit these locations between a few times a week

(25%) and a few times a month (41%). This indicates that although those who

are especially zealous about downtown Elon may be slightly more inclined to

spend time there, there is certainly not a direct and consistent relationship

between these two variables. In terms of a campaign to increase traffic in this

area, this could be a positive indication. Likely because of the lack of other

nearby shopping and leisure centers, even those students who are not

specifically impressed with downtown Elon can frequently be found there.

With some necessary alterations to the commercial landscape, downtown

Elon could maintain this level of utilization while dramatically improving upon

student satisfaction.

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 Our second hypothesis was “the less amount of time students have

been at Elon, the more satisfied they will be with the businesses located

downtown.” While familiarity with downtown had an (expected) high positive

correlation with students’ year at Elon, that year had much less correlation to

satisfaction. While we expected underclassmen to have been more satisfied

with the options downtown and seniors to be more “burnt out” from them,

we instead found that students were largely dissatisfied with or indifferent to

downtown Elon regardless of their year. 50% of freshman respondents were

somewhat dissatisfied, and 50% of senior respondents were somewhat

satisfied. This should be of interest in future planning endeavors or

campaigns, as it indicates that marketing to existing upperclassmen could be

just as effective a strategy as marketing to younger students when it comes

to increasing traffic downtown.

With a choice of which contributing factors to emphasize when

promoting shopping in downtown Elon, the Town of Elon should focus on the

businesses and establishments it offers, rather than issues of pricing or target

audience (year at Elon). While these factors are still valid, the data shows

them to be less important in relation to consumer outcomes than student

opinions of the type of businesses offered. Students overwhelmingly value

and desire locally-owned nightlife/bar options, meaning that improvement in

this area could likely mean an increase in profits, utilization, and satisfaction

with downtown Elon.

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Limitations/Future research

Due to the nature of a convenience sample, one limitation to our

research is that most of our respondents were juniors and seniors. This made

up 69% of respondents to our survey, making just about 30% of respondents

underclassman and those presumably under 21 years of age.

Another limitation of our research is that we could have included a

question that evaluated students overall sentiment and feelings towards

Downtown Elon. This would have assisted when cross tabbing our first

hypothesis.

If we were to continue our research past our initial survey, we would

want to evaluate what aspects of students’ favorite downtown spots made

them more favorable over others. In questions 4 and 5 in our initial survey, we

asked respondents about how price motivated they were as well as the

importance of supporting local businesses. We would investigate further into

how products sold, dining options, business hours, theme nights and special

deals also play into increasing commercial traffic in downtown Elon.

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