New retail vendor license growth shows growing confidence in region

Sheila Brown opened her new business, Kidstuff, located in West Carrollton, earlier this month. The shop buys and sells gently used kids clothing, toys and gear. She and her daughter Riley, 4, hang clothes on the racks.

Staff photo by Lisa Powell Sheila Brown opened her new business, Kidstuff, located in West Carrollton, earlier this month. The shop buys and sells gently used kids clothing, toys and gear. She and her daughter Riley, 4, hang clothes on the racks.

ENLARGE PHOTO

Air Force intelligence center gets new commander May 30
3:03 p.m.
Beach Waterpark sued for failure to deliver
1:56 p.m.
Dayton gets boost from committee for UAV testing
5/24/12
Police headlines: Two accused of child endangering
5/24/12
Ad calls Brown career politician
5/24/12
> More headlines

By Cornelius Frolik, Staff Writer Updated 9:26 AM Monday, February 6, 2012

An increase in new retail vendor licenses in Champaign, Greene and Montgomery counties signals growing entrepreneurship and improving confidence in investing in those local economies, according to local business leaders.

The growth comes a year after six of seven Miami Valley counties experienced declines in the number of new retail vendor licenses.

More new entities last year also filed to do business in the state, and business leaders said the trends bode well for Ohio because entrepreneurs are crucial to creating new jobs and fostering a vibrant economic recovery.

“Every business I am aware of started from something, and most of them started from something small,” said Phil Parker, president and CEO of the Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce. “New, successful startups will drive growth in employment, creation of wealth and a more solid and stable economy.”

Any person or company making taxable sales in Ohio is required to have a vendor’s license, and retail vendor licenses are required for businesses with a fixed place of business, said Gary Gudmundson, spokesman for the Ohio Department of Taxation. Retail licenses are sold by county auditors and online by the state.

Between 2009 and 2010, new retail vendor licenses decreased in six out of the seven counties in the Miami Valley, according to data from county auditors. In 2010, the overall number of licenses issued in the region was 2,404, down 10 percent from a year earlier.

Although declines continued last year in Butler, Clark, Miami and Warren counties, the numbers rebounded in Champaign, Greene and Montgomery counties, according to county auditors.

The Butler County auditor said the license figures provided to the Dayton Daily News did not include those sold by the state.

New retail vendor licenses last year increased by 15 percent to 61 permits in Champaign County and 35 percent to 272 permits in Greene County, according to auditor data.

New licenses issued in Montgomery County increased by 12.4 percent to 950 permits in 2011 from 845 in 2010, according to the county auditor. They were also up from 917 in 2009.

Sheila Brown, 36, of Springboro, obtained a new retail vendor’s license last year so she could open Kidstuff, a new business located at 2080 S. Alex Road in West Carrollton. The store sells gently-used kids clothing, toys and equipment.

Brown said she was eager to start her own business because she was not confident she could find a job in her field as a result of the weak labor market.

“My background is real estate and mortgages, and just knowing how the business is right now, I knew it would be very hard to get a decent job,” she said

Still, Brown also said the poor economy provided her with a unique business opportunity because overhead costs were lower.

“It’s actually easier (to open a business today) because landlords are hurting for tenants, so you can get good deals if you try hard enough,” she said.

Although the failure rate of new start-ups is very high, creating a new business in a down economy has its advantages, such as less competition and cheaper infrastructure costs, said Earl Gregorich, the director of the Small Business Development Center at Wright State University.

“If you wanted to open a storefront, you’d have your pick of locations at a very reasonable cost,” he said.

Gregorich said it is obviously much easier to obtain a vendor’s license than it is to open and operate a successful business, and many new start-ups will not survive, but he said the license growth has both positive and negative qualities.

“I am in the business of putting people in business, and this obviously trends well for that,” he said. “But from the standpoint of a business counselor who is also an entrepreneur myself, I consider my day just as successful if I keep a person out of business who shouldn’t be.”

George Zeller, an economist in Cleveland who studies labor trends, said the increases in new vendor’s licenses show that firms are investing in additional retail in parts of the Miami Valley, and those investments correspond with the ongoing economic recovery.

Zeller said franchises and chains, such as McDonald’s, will have multiple vendor licenses in every county, so some of the numbers reflect the number of retail locations instead of number of firms, but he said any sign of growth is positive because the region has suffered tremendous losses in recent years.

He said Montgomery County lost 27.2 percent of its retail trade employment during the past decade. New retail vendor licenses last year were down 34 percent from 2005.

“The problem is that the recovery is too slow: What we need is a vigorous and faster recovery so as to make up for the very large previous losses in employment and earnings in the Miami Valley and elsewhere in Ohio,” Zeller said. “That one-year growth is good, but we have a long way to go before we can make up for the previous losses.”

In addition to vendor’s licenses, the number of entities filing to do business in Ohio grew to 82,601 last year, up from 80,081 the previous year, according to Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted. Filing as a business does not guarantee the company will begin operations, be profitable or create jobs.

“When it comes to the number of new businesses choosing to operate in Ohio, our state is heading in the right direction,” Husted said in a prepared statement. “We hope for an even more prosperous year for Ohio in 2012.”

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-0749 or cfrolik@DaytonDailyNews.com.

@@facebook=http://www.facebook.com/daytondailynews/posts/332459090132004@@

Share this article