An hour's drive from the capital is a retail district unknown to many Ottawans. But retailers in the town of Perth are trying to change that.

Many Ottawa residents have only experienced the car dealerships, gas stations and fast food restaurants along Hwy. 7 through Perth, but local retailers want people to know their downtown has a lot to offer customers looking for unique products.

Perth is set on the Tay River and located at the edge of the Canadian Shield and the Ottawa Valley and residents consider their community to be a charming small town with impressive architecture.

Nestled among the historic buildings are many retail establishments that rely on local residents and tourists, mainly from the United States, to sustain their business. Retailers say some Ottawa residents come for the day to shop in Perth, but more would be desirable.

"I don't think we're as well-known as we could or should be," says Karen McLean, co-owner of two-year-old gift shop, The WoodKnot, and a longtime Perth resident.

After being downsized from Nortel Networks, Hugh Chatfield and wife Mary Colleen have owned a clothing and specialty item store, Urban Market Perth, for six years.

Chatfield thinks Perth needs to promote itself to Ottawa residents as a destination shopping centre, instead of relying on tourists from the U.S. to boost seasonal peaks.

"My opinion is that Ottawa is the place you have to concentrate on. I don't think a lot of Ottawans know about Perth. They don't know a century-old town is one hour from downtown."

After a disastrous tourism season in Ontario in 2003, summer sales at the Chatfields' store were down 30 per cent from 2002 and down 20 per cent at Christmas compared to the previous year.

McLean agrees that, for her new business, the downturn in tourism has been a challenge. With a limited number of local residents to buy her Canadian-made wares, she definitely wants to pursue the Ottawa market.

"We have done advertising out of the area hoping that people will come to us."

To address the challenge, Chatfield used his technical expertise to create a web site, all-about-perth.com, to educate people about the town of Perth and its attractions and allow retailers and residents to tell their stories about the town. A retailer or other business can be included on the site for no charge, as long as it contributes content.

"After a couple of years in retail, I came to realize that, in a small town, the idea of merchants competing with each other for scarce dollars from that town was a bad business model. A better model is the town collaborating together to compete for scarce dollars from nearby large populations against other nearby towns," says Chatfield, who had previously developed sites for his own store, as well as several others in town.

This past November, Chatfield was encouraged by the fact the web site had approximately 34,000 hits, with more than 400 repeat visitors.

John Clement, chairperson of the Downtown Heritage Perth BIA, says Perth retailers face a lot of competition from nearby towns such as Smith Falls and malls such as Bayshore Shopping Centre.

With fewer tourists last year, Perth BIA co-ordinator Heather Hansgen says the BIA's advertising budget is now concentrating heavily on the Ottawa market.

"In the past we've been more experimental in Montreal and Toronto. This year we're scaling back and concentrating more on Ottawa. We are marketing Perth as a day trip destination shopping centre with fabulous dining."

HARMONIZING STORE HOURS

One issue for Perth retailers is harmonizing store hours. Clement says since many businesses are sole proprietorships or have only two employees, it is tough to expect them to stay open late hours and on Sundays.

Hansgen agrees.

"Store hours are something we struggle with. We want to build on our customer base, but there is no formula to get people to agree with it. More stores are realizing shopping trends are different now and surveys we have conducted show Sunday shopping is what residents want more than late evenings."

Clement says Perth's festivals, such as the annual garlic festival and festival of lights, are popular.

While they tend not to be prosperous shopping days, Clement hopes people who discover Perth for a particular festival will come back to shop another day.

"We can't rest on our laurels," says Clement. "We need to do a better job than before and keep working at it because other communities are trying to do the same."

This is the ninth in a series called Neighbourhood Retail Watch: A Series, which looks at retail trends in different areas of the city. The article was first published Jan. 12, 2004