A local business owner needed to convince Ben & Jerry’s that local residents in Boone would frequent his shop. But he faced a challenge: On paper, Boone is sparsely populated, with many household incomes falling well below the state’s median.
Starting in November 2017, he began working with Carolina Demography to paint a more robust picture of the area.
We began by looking at data from the U.S. Census Bureau and other sources, which indicated that the high-level snapshot of the county didn’t paint a complete picture. Many county residents are students at Appalachian State University and the county receives steady, year-round stream of tourists. As a result, top-line demographic and socioeconomic data did not sufficiently capture the buying power of residents or the economic impact of tourists.
Our customized report, which detailed the true economic landscape of the area, convinced Ben & Jerry’s to award the franchise in Boone.
Local business owner
To detail the true economic landscape of an area's buying power
This is the third installment of a three-part series looking at migration in and out of North Carolina. Read the first and second posts in the series to learn where NC's residents are moving from and which NC counties are…
This is the second post in a three-post series looking at in-migration and out-migration in North Carolina. Read the first post in the series, "NC is rapidly growing. Where are our new residents moving from?" Between 2017 and 2018, North…
North Carolina’s population has grown by 848,000 new residents, or 8.9%, since the 2010 Census, rising to 10.4 million residents as of 2018. The state’s annual growth slowed during the Great Recession of 2008 and subsequent recovery period but began…