Kickstart Southern Oregon

Businesses hope to bring in more customers to help recover from the economic impacts of the Coronavirus pandemic.

12's brian morton sat down with the medford chamber c-e-o to learn how the program is doing after it's first week.

"we are a week into kickstart southern oregon for people that maybe are not familiar with that.

Can you explain exactly what that is?

Yeah.

Um, well i think the name says it all.

Uh, it's no secret that our economy could use a little bit of a kickstart right now.

And, and as you've chronicled over the last 12 weeks plus, um, you know, we've been doing a lot of, uh, guidance and direction with our members.

But now we're at that point where we've entered phase two and people are reopening and we wanted to do something that would add a little spark to that, a kickstarter.

Well, and how's that playing out for people who might be looking to spend some money with your members?

Yeah, so it's, it's really pretty simple.

Um, there's no rocket science to it at all.

Uh, participating members.

Uh, offer a deal.

In fact, i should amend that to say, uh, participating businesses because we've made this available to chamber members and non chamber member businesses alike.

And, uh, in this instance, i'm, i'm pleased to say it's about 50, 50.

We've got, um, members and nonmembers alike participating in.

So i'm, i'm thrilled.

That we were able to get the word out and they're participating, but they make an offer.

We tried to pick the three days of the week that are traditionally the hardest, um, particularly for retailers, you know, that monday, tuesday, wednesday, part of the week, thursday, friday, saturdays, pretty good.

So a 25% discount, 50%, 15% discount than a 10% discount, uh, working, uh, kind of graduated scale down.

And, um, uh, if you are, uh, a consumer, you can take advantage of some great deals.

And it's, it's just about everything under the sun.

Some communities have done this and they've been exclusive to bars and restaurants and wine tasting rooms. and, and ours is no different in that.

It includes those businesses, but we wanted everybody to be able to participate, whether they're a heating and air conditioning company or a, uh, you know, you name it a shoe store.

So how does a consumer find out a who's involved and when those discounts are applicable?

Well, it's growing every day.

So just continue to go to medford chamber.com for example, um, when we first talked about having this discussion, it was about half the size it is right now.

So it's already from last week to this week, it's already doubled in terms of the numbers.

I can't tell you exactly the number of folks off the top of my head, but i noticed that it was about double.

Um, where we started.

So that's great.

And i hope that trend continues.

Um, we set a, an end date for the middle of next month, but as we discussed the, this morning and one of our meetings, if it's successful and people are taking advantage of it on both ends, the consumer end and the business end, there's no reason to stop so we can keep it going if people want us to.

And how are your members and potentially non-members adjusting to the new reality.

Are the customers coming back?

Slowly, but surely, um, you know, as we've discussed before a lot of, uh, rules and guidelines around that, both for, uh, customers and for the businesses.

And, um, um, uh, i promised, i wouldn't say new normal anymore, but, uh, i'm going to say this, this new normal is taking quite a bit of a adjust to