Irvine Wrestles With Online Shopping That?s Cutting Into City Coffers

eyephone

Well-known member
?The Irvine City Council has directed city staff to develop an ad campaign, encouraging residents to buy from Irvine stores to help offset the ongoing drop in sales taxes caused by online shopping.

Mayor Pro Tem Christina Shea, at the June 12 council meeting which unanimously passed the budget, suggested the ?aggressive marketing campaign? to help off-set a projected $6 million deficit in the 2018-2019 city budget.

?Sales tax doesn?t have quite the rosy picture ? we have flattened out and in fact are fairly flat over the last several years,? acting City Manager Grace Leung said during the budget presentation. She said the revenue is expected to grow only half a percent. Online shopping has flattened sales tax revenue in many communities.?

Source:https://voiceofoc.org/2018/06/irvine-wrestles-with-online-shopping-thats-cutting-into-city-coffers/
 
Boycott, those business and restaurants that ONLY takes cash. If they want to do business, then it should be legitimate business AND paying their fair share. These owners are not poor, just more greedy and it need to stop.
 
What I find funny is Irvine is making TONS of money off property taxes so they shouldn't be complaining about sales tax.

Does Irvine get MR money too?
 
Online shopping is not going away and not hurt anytime soon. People will continue to buy online. Its the tax cheats cash only shops that they need to clamp down.
 
Net pension liability for the city of Irvine $140,730 (in thousands) which is $140,730,000. (Source page 25 of Irvine?s financial statment for the fiscal year 2017)
 
So if I buy from a mom-and-pop store in Irvine, city of Irvine collects the sales tax, but if I buy from Amazon and live in Irvine, sales tax goes to the state or county instead of the city or Irvine?  Eh?
 
eyephone said:
?The Irvine City Council has directed city staff to develop an ad campaign, encouraging residents to buy from Irvine stores to help offset the ongoing drop in sales taxes caused by online shopping.

The marketing campaign is a waste of money. If Tustin, Costa Mesa, Lake Forest, etc. then launch their own campaigns, citizens all shop a little more in their own city and every city is poorer for wasting money on marketing.

An interesting fact:
- If you purchase a car from an Irvine auto dealer, Irvine gets 1%.
- If you purchase from Tustin, etc. Irvine gets nothing
- If you lease from anywhere, Irvine gets 1% of your monthly lease payment (the dealer city still collects sales tax on any down payment or incentives)
 
irvinehomeowner said:
What I find funny is Irvine is making TONS of money off property taxes so they shouldn't be complaining about sales tax.

Does Irvine get MR money too?

Here are the numbers from Irvine FY 2017 Financial Statements page 19.

(note numbers are in thousands)

Property tax 2017 $62,374 vs 2016 $57,944
Sales tax 2017 $61,617 vs 2016 $62,120
 
Burn That Belly said:
eyephone said:
irvinehomeowner said:
What I find funny is Irvine is making TONS of money off property taxes so they shouldn't be complaining about sales tax.

Does Irvine get MR money too?

Here are the numbers from Irvine FY 2017 Financial Statements page 19.

(note numbers are in thousands)

Property tax 2017 $62,374 vs 2016 $57,944
Sales tax 2017 $61,617 vs 2016 $62,120

That deficit is easy to solve. Increase next years? MR by 2 more percent.

Lol
 
Hello all!
Irvine Company well knows the threat of online shopping to brick and mortar stores.
Their strategy is to sign on more businesses that are acknowledging the online presence, so they'll most likely invest in a retail store that has at least a good percentage in online sales on top of their brick & mortar stores. Or there will be retail stores that are smaller in size that hold less stock quantities of each item (e.g. only one size small of a shirt, one med, etc), and used mainly for people to pick up/return (I think Nordstroms is testing this concept).

Another way is to lure shoppers with amenities, like the Irvine Spectrum. You have a good mix of the theater, restaurants, retail, ferris wheel...
Or renovate existing retail portfolios, like the renovation at the woodbridge plaza.
They're def trying hard to keep current with stores that would attract the current trendy locations, like din tai fung, or cool boba shops, etc.

Amazon is def a tough competitor, and many malls are expected to close in the near future. But there will be at least a few like the spectrum that's the main attraction.

Currently though, Irvine retail plazas are earning a ridiculous amount of revenue, way higher than other US plazas. So not an immediate threat, but definitely will be interesting how retail will adapt in the future.

*oh shoot, I realized this is titled "cutting into city coffers," as for that I have no idea  ;D

*Also, I would agree supporting mom & pop stores and actually going into stores. But free 2 day shipping is so nice! Buying clothes online is such a pain though (returning due to wrong fit/looks downright awful when you wear), falling back to going into stores to buy them
 
misslavender said:
Hello all!
Irvine Company well knows the threat of online shopping to brick and mortar stores.
Their strategy is to sign on more businesses that are acknowledging the online presence, so they'll most likely invest in a retail store that has at least a good percentage in online sales on top of their brick & mortar stores. Or there will be retail stores that are smaller in size that hold less stock quantities of each item (e.g. only one size small of a shirt, one med, etc), and used mainly for people to pick up/return (I think Nordstroms is testing this concept).

Another way is to lure shoppers with amenities, like the Irvine Spectrum. You have a good mix of the theater, restaurants, retail, ferris wheel...
Or renovate existing retail portfolios, like the renovation at the woodbridge plaza.

Amazon is def a tough competitor, and many malls are expected to close in the near future. But there will be at least a few like the spectrum that's the main attraction.

Currently though, Irvine retail plazas are earning a ridiculous amount of revenue, way higher than other US plazas. So not an immediate threat, but definitely will be interesting how retail will adapt in the future.

*oh shoot, I realized this is titled "cutting into city coffers," as for that I have no idea  ;D

*Also, I would agree supporting mom & pop stores and actually going into stores. But free 2 day shipping is so nice! Buying clothes online is such a pain though, falling back to going into stores to buy them

Maybe the solution is to open more 85c bakery cafe locations.
 
A "Shop Irvine" campaign doesn't make sense.  Online shopping isn't going anywhere.  Free market -> rational consumers will choose the best value.

The city should consider cutting expenditures instead of asking for charity hand outs from it's already heavily taxed constituents.

And yah, like others have said, ensure that sales tax regulations are being followed. 

When a private business sees it's revenue stream disrupted it must innovate and increase efficiency.  Get on board Irvine government.
 
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