Retailisms #2: It’s Not About the Parking

If you’ve worked in downtown or district revitalization long enough, you’ve heard it:

“There’s no parking.”
“We’re losing customers because people can’t park.”
“If the city would just fix the parking problem, we’d be fine.”

Let me translate: when most retailers say they have a parking problem, what they’re really saying is—“we don’t have enough customers.”

Decoding the Parking Complaint

It makes sense. Retailers look at their daily sales and see they’re lower than expected. They step outside, notice full parking spaces, and then look back at an empty store. “If we only had more parking, we would have more sales.” It’s human nature to connect the two. If customers aren’t coming in and parking appears full, the conclusion feels obvious.

Complaints also come from customers and employees. But when people say, “there’s no parking,” it often really means:

• “I didn’t find a spot exactly where I wanted it.”
• “I have to pay to park.”
• “I had to walk farther than I expected.”
• “It wasn’t convenient.”
• “I’m frustrated.”

But here’s the hard truth: in most downtowns and retail corridors, parking is rarely the root problem.

When spaces are full, it often means:

• Employees are parking in prime spots
• Long-term parkers are occupying high-turnover spaces
• There’s no parking management strategy
• Or—the district is busy… just not in that store

The issue isn’t always supply. It’s circulation, turnover, and having the right retail mix.

What’s Probably Happening

When a retailer is struggling, parking becomes a convenient scapegoat. It’s external. It’s civic. It’s someone else’s responsibility. It feels a lot better than asking harder questions:

• Is my product mix right?
• Is my store layout working?
• Are my hours aligned with customer behavior?
• Is my customer service where it needs to be?

Parking is concrete. Everything else is personal. So we blame the concrete.

How to Respond

When a retailer says, “We have a parking problem,” don’t dismiss them—decode them.

Ask:

• What times of day feel hardest?
• Where are employees parking?
• How long are customers staying?
• What does foot traffic actually look like?
• Have sales patterns changed?

Sometimes there is a parking management issue that can be improved with better signage, time limits, enforcement, shared parking agreements, or employee parking plans. But often, what the retailer really needs isn’t more asphalt.

They need:

• Better merchandising
• Stronger marketing
• Clearer branding
• A more compelling customer experience

And sometimes… they need honest business coaching.

The Real Retailism

Parking complaints are rarely about parking. They’re about fear. Fear of declining sales. Fear of losing momentum. Fear that something is shifting—and not knowing how to fix it. When we learn to decode what retailers are really saying, we can respond with solutions instead of dismissing them. And that’s how you build stronger stores—and stronger downtowns.

---

Molly Alexander is a retail consultant and successful retail operator who sold one of her stores in 2025 after 13 successful years in business. Through her work with retailers and downtown leaders, she helps decode the real issues behind the symptoms—and turn them into actionable strategies.