Pathways To A New Black Economy: The New Way (2)

The Black Town Square

The proposed Black Town Square will stand out as the largest Town Square in the world, having pathways and roadways that lead to a variety of shops, buildings, institutions, and highways that extend out beyond the Square into the black community, and back again. It's not possible in this limited space to describe every shop, building, or institution that's likely to find a location within the Town Square, or to explore every destination that the roads in and out of the Square will take you.

For now, I will describe a few of the places that will make the Square their home, and leave it to your imagination to divine the scope and magnitude of what is possible, once the Square has been constructed, and visitors pour through its gates seeking out treasures, information, and kindred souls with which to bond and collaborate for the purpose of enhancing the lives of those blacks seemingly trapped within the various black populations centers throughout this nation.

Because the Town Square is virtual, rather constructed of actual bricks and mortar, its size and dimensions are practically limitless, and its uses constrained only by our imaginations.

I chose Disney's Town Square, U.S.A., and the above picture in particular, to represent the visual of my imaginary and virtual square, mostly for its warmth (albeit below a cheerless sky), its friendly and welcoming ambiance--and mainly because it has the Town Square feel that I wish to project, and it shrouds in ambiguity the ethnicity of those entering the Square.

Shops--the Retail Component

Near the entrance of the Square, you'll find shops and stores featuring ethnocentric, and Afro-centric clothing, many of which have been designed by blacks for blacks. Next door to these shops are toy stores with the black customer in mind--boasting a variety of black dolls, games with a black emphasis, and a variety of other toys with definite black themes--all designed by blacks, and manufactured in the black community by blacks, for blacks.

Across the square, several jewelry stores are opened, and through their windows may be seen jewelry of gold, silver, precious and non-precious stones of every conceivable price--designed by blacks for blacks, with an eye toward creating designs with a unique black appeal, and fashioned in the black community.

Farther down the square, and off the main street--because the aroma of freshly baked goods have an attraction all their own--are located bakeries with every conceivable variety of baked goods under the sun: pies, cakes, cookies, and every child's delight: cupcakes.

Competing with the bakeries for attention are several candy stores, a confectionary lovers dream--rich chocolates, caramels, nougats, and chocolate covered nuts.

An Art Gallery is set up in an open-air area near the bookstore. Sculpture, paintings, drawings, prints are everywhere. Some are framed, while others may be framed or used just as they are. Photographs featuring blacks in a variety of situations and poses may also be purchased and used to illustrate web pages, blogs, books, magazines, posters, etc--to be used online or off.

Next to the Art Gallery, a Gifts and Greeting Cards store draws in customers looking for that ideal gift or perfect card for the observance of, or celebration of, a variety of occasions, events, or situations--to say thank you, or to say I'm sorry, or just to congratulate.

The Town Square will be designed around the visuals of an actual town square (although an imaginary one), so that it will have the feel and atmosphere of one. The retail component of the Square will be the core of it, although the Square will be designed for a much larger purpose (A purpose I'll make clear in subsequent articles). Approved black businesses will sell their products on consignment. Although these products will be featured on the site for sale, and sold using the site's basket technology, the orders may be filled at any location within the United States.

For our service (advertising, using our point of sell capability--a basket feature), and the placing of the order, we will exact a fee. This activity will constitute our main source of income for the Square, although not the only source.

Here's my aim: to provide an outlet for black products and services. In order to do that, we need a serious web site with a huge database capacity, and filtering capability--where all the elements are working together to promote the site: it's products and other offerings.

We have many blacks who are making things. And many of them are located within black communities. With a Black Town Square, they now have a single place from which to offer their goods, thereby expanding their customer base, and building a demand for their products--the result of a broader market. As demand grows, it will lead to an expansion of business, and a hiring of new people to meet that demand, contributing to the community's economy, as people have more money to spend with those businesses residing within their local communities.

Because these products are now featured on the Internet, blacks around the world, those from countries with Internet access, will have access to these black products, creating possibly a foreign market for goods made principally in our black communities by black workers.

Because the Square will give businesses new customers--not just within their own sphere of influence, but over a vast area--they can now invest more in the black community, spurring job growth, and adding to the local black economy. These black businesses now have market penetration in areas that have been, up to now, closed to them because of distance.

Why a Black Town Square?

On the Internet, as well as off the Internet, location is everything. No matter how wonderful a site may be, if you can't direct Internet traffic to your location, then all is lost. That would be equally true if you had a store in your neighborhood but it was off the beaten path--that is, the main thoroughfare. This is why shopping centers, malls, and what have you, put so much energy into attracting anchor stores, stores already with an identity, and plenty of money to advertise their sales, their product lines, and their location. As a result, anchor stores can risk being a little out of the way, because people will go out of their way to find them.

For example: Applebees generally locate it restaurants near a Wal-mart. Not only does Applebees pretty much serve the same targeted customer as Wal-mart, it allows Wal-mart to do most of its marketing research for it. Therefore, when you find a Wal-mart in your neighborhood you can almost always find Applebees.

Clever, don't you think?

Further, having an anchor store in an area also mean that those smaller, less recognizable stores that surround it will stand a greater chance of being noticed. And it's also the reason why to lease space in those areas will cost more than a side street that gets very little traffic.

Our virtual Town Square will serve the same purpose as these anchor stores, but on the Web. We will advertise. We will use every device at our disposal to bring attention to our Black Town Square--and, whenever possible, to capture such attention without having to pay for it. Because of the novelty of the Square, that in itself will make it newsworthy, attracting to the site those we have targeted--blacks from various locations around the nation, regardless of state, or city within which they dwell.

We will, however, advertise where blacks are likely to encounter an advertisement for our Town Square. That will be one way to attract new visitors, but another will be word-of-mouth, if we can make the Square The Place to visit, for old and young alike.

Any black person with a computer and access to the Internet will be able to find his or her way to the Square and partake of the various things within the Square, some of which will be free--while some will bear a price tag.

Once there, it's only natural for browsers and window shoppers to investigate other areas of the Town Square. Curiosity is a powerful motivator. Ads strategically placed throughout the site will direct attention, and fuel our visitor's curiosity to know more about other Town Square features, and offerings.

What we'll create, then, is a multipurpose site (a Mega-Site), one that offers as many things as is possible--even things for amusement--that, once there, visitors will be tempted to stroll through the various areas of the Town Square in search of value, information, and ways to stay informed about matters that impact blacks generally and specifically.

The Town Square, then, becomes a Hub, an Economic Center, a Clearinghouse, a Central Source, a One-Stop Shopping Experience, and a Black Meeting Place, to name a few. The concept of a Hub is not unique: My research turned up several such ideas. What's unique to the proposed Town Square is its size, and its ability to provide a point of sell for many products, without having to redirect potential customers to another site. Some of the sites featured here--as examples of the concept--also have point of sell capabilities, or a basket approach to making purchases. Yet, they have no mechanism for customer feedback--a way of assessing the level of service from a business, or the satisfaction with a product purchased--an important feature of The Black Town Square. Later, I will provide links to a few of these sites so that you can make your own independent assessments.

A positive trend: Online sells are up 7.2% over last year. Not all blacks will be able to take advantage of this trend, but enough will, which will be the difference maker for those blacks eager to expand their market, and grow their business.

"Over the last year, the broadband-adoption gap between blacks and whites has been cut nearly in half," according to a new survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Broadband is generally defined as high-speed Internet access.

"'Broadband adoption by African Americans now stands at 56%, up from 46% at a similar point in 2009," the study said. "That works out to a 22% year-over-year growth rate, well above the national average and by far the highest growth rate of any major demographic group.'

"The increase has implications for media targeting African Americans, black-owned and otherwise." [1]

It also has "implications" for businesses targeting blacks.

Here's my vision: And I will continue to bring this vision to life in subsequent articles. It is my hope that the Town Square concept will spur new entrepreneurial activity within the black community, leading to more employment of blacks, and a revolution in the economic revitalization of the inner cities, and black communities generally, as it provides broader markets for those who choose to participate in this endeavor--markets that were unavailable to them because of the impediment of distance.

We will sell ad space. We will redirect traffic to other sites. And we will charge for this service. We can take every successful idea on the Internet and repurpose it with a black slant.

We will actively seek out those blacks with a business or a service, and offer them the Town Square advantage--to either have a redirect from the Square, to sell products from within the Square, or to use the Square to promote their business or service.

Therefore, those who wish to Buy Black (also known as the Ebony Experiment) [2] will be able to locate black businesses, black professionals, and others with whom they may do business. If this database is available online, it can be manipulated to generate a variety of information--information that can be used to direct customers to physical or Internet sites. The Ebony Experiment, which may have started this whole Buy Black phenomenon, seems to have morphed into the Empowerment Experiment (EE). The site features some excellent black directories for locating black businesses and professionals--a source that may be useful in our endeavor. Unfortunately, many of the links that I tried are inactive. Hat tip to Ernesto for reminding me of the Buy Black movement.

On this site, I found iZania Market. It has a concept similar to the one I'm proposing, but not many businesses participating.

The Black Business Network, also on this site, comes closest to the concept I have in mind, although participants are few. Where possible, I will reach out and support those businesses featured on the Network. I tried to join the Network, but to join required that I give out information that I preferred to keep secret. The sign-up form assumes that I'm a company with a mailing address. Because sign-up is at least a two-stage process (I couldn't get passed the second stage.), it was hard to tell exactly how to become a member of the "online community" without being a business or, at the very least, fudging.

For our part: We will actively search out black businesses and services that may benefit from having a central location for what they offer--a location that actively promotes itself, and its content.

Further, we will provide for customer review of products and services (a feature that seems missing on many of the sites). This will reduce and discourage fraud, and will be one of the conditions for selling, advertising, or being redirected from within the Square. For example, if there's a black home improvement contractor operating unsatisfactorily, that contractor's shoddy practices will become a part of his or her record. Rating information will be available readily to those who seek it--partly to determine with whom to do business (those with a better rating or review), and partly to expose those who have questionable business practices.

I fully expect the Square to have customers beyond its targeted group, but only those who can be said to have a black business, or is a black professional, or a service provider, will be allowed to have an address or a location within the Square, or be allowed to promote their business, or service.

Ads and other information will be interspersed throughout the Square, regardless of the area in which visitors may find themselves.

[1] Surge in Blacks Using Broadband

[2] The Ebony Experiment domain name expired on 8/15/2010 pending renewal or deletion.