2018 Heart of Biddeford Downtown Business Survey: Recap and Review

The talk around town is true! Biddeford is a great place to do business! We are happy to report an overall positive trend downtown, with satisfied business owners.

During a five-week period throughout the first half of this spring, Heart of Biddeford was able to administer and collect 55 survey responses from various local downtown businesses. HOB sent out multiple email surveys to 270 downtown/mill businesses and followed up with numerous in-person site visits and reminders. These additional site visits, along with several in-person interviews, were mainly focused on the Main Street section of town.

This survey was designed, in partnership with the Biddeford Economic Development Department, to assess the current environment for businesses in the downtown.

Check out some of the impressive findings associated with the 2018 HOB Downtown Business Survey listed below!

Sales are up!

• 70% of businesses report an increase in sales in the past three years! (15% report staying the same, and 5% report a decrease)
• 90% of business owners expect to see sales increase in the next three years.

Here to stay!

• 80% of businesses plan to stay, and have not considered relocating, selling, or closing their Biddeford business.

They like it here!

• 80% of business owners are satisfied with the quality of new development in the downtown!
  The majority of businesses were satisfied with the overall image of the city (53%), the feeling of safety (64%), and quality of city services (64%). There’s more work to do here, but we’re on the right track!

They need parking solutions!

• 82% of businesses said they would like to see the implementation of a parking facility in the downtown. (The businesses that most want a new parking facility have the the most difficulty finding parking.)

Heart of Biddeford would like to thank all participating business owners for taking the time to complete this survey. We look forward to building on this positive trend downtown!

To view a more extensive presentation of the findings, please click here. (It’s a large file, so please be patient while it loads.)