Follow WNC 380 High St.(503)362-8667

Monday, July 6, 2009

Ouch!

Posted by Salem Man
We got ripped by a another local blog for our Trader Joe's online poll. Check it out. Our friends over at the "I (Heart) Salem" blog are making the point that Corvallis has a higher percentage of college graduates then Salem, therefore more attractive to Trader Joe's. The census numbers show that 53% of the population of Corvallis has at least a bachelors degree, 24% of the folks in Salem have achieved the same education rank. Let's look at those numbers this way, 53% of the population of Corvallis is 26,400 and 24% of the population of Salem is 36,500. I'm not saying Corvallis doesn't deserve a Trader Joe's, I hope they get one, but you cannot say there is too small of an educated population to support a Trader Joe's here. The I (Heart) Salem folks also criticized the poll on eatsalem.com that we used as "definitive data." I'll be the first to say that online polling is far from scientific. There are plenty of ways to cheat on these things and skew data one way or another. I have no way of knowing if that happened here. Let's assume that it did. So let's throw out half of the yes votes on the poll. That would still make it around 90% of the people responding saying they would shop at Trader Joe's. Only two people on this poll said "no," assuming that wasn't the same person voting twice. Almost everyone who responded to the poll agreed that they would shop at Trader Joe's. To me, that's "definitive data" that Trader Joe's would be successful in this town. Finally, I apologize to the folks at I (Heart) Salem for the grammatical errors making it unbearable to read eatsalem.com. I got my BA from a California State University in a community where there are only 5 Trader Joe's within 15 miles of each other.
at 8:38 AM
Labels:

8 comments:

  1. This looks like a story worthy of thousands of daily viewers, Eat. Let's take this a step further (hey, we love Trader Joe's too) and get this poll even more attention...no worries, we think errors show humanity. :)

    ReplyDelete

  2. Hey Eat,
    We appreciate the humanity of spelling errors, and would love to see Trader Joe's in our vicinity. How about turning this as a news piece? Let me know if you're interested!
    Bonnie

    ReplyDelete

  3. I do hope that Salem gets a TJ's. There are a number of reasons why we should, but the most telling to me is location. Many people take trips north to get their Whole Foods/TJ's/ethnic market shopping on each month (myself included). Salem lands more squarely between the current locales of Tigard and Eugene than Corvallis does. Your demographics point stands -- more college grads here.

    I'm sorry to say, however, that I do agree that grammar, spelling, punctuation and usability are vitally important if you want to be taken seriously. We all make mistakes, of course. But trends that are consistent do and will continue to damage the credibility of a resource.

    ReplyDelete

  4. I don't know if that blog article should be taken seriously. It was fairly rude and offened even me, who is not easily offended, with some below the belt attacks at EatSalem. Your reasoning, SM, seems sound to me. There's no way we can do a scientifically sound poll with EatSalem's resources, but from what I learned in my grad-school statistical analysis class your poll does show that this is an idea someone (TJ's or a local paper) should follow up on. Would be interesting to pick an area where a TJ's could be built in Salem and look at the demographics leaving out the other areas' data.

    ReplyDelete

  5. In the news today, seems there was a nail put in that coffin for now: "Trader Joe's picks site in Corvallis"

    http://statesmanjournal.com/article/20090706/UPDATE/90706015

    ReplyDelete

  6. LOL WUT? Corvallis has TWO wonderful co-op grocery stores in town, they don't NEED a freakin' TJ's.

    ReplyDelete

  7. Actually, Salem has a higher college graduate population, in terms of GRADUATION. Don't forget, we have the largest higher learning institute in Oregon right here in town! OSU has roughly 20,000 students but Chemeketa has nearly 70,000. That's a huge difference. Just because it's not a four year school, and you can't get a BA/BS there, doesn't mean it's not a college. We also have Willamette and Corban....and TIUA, which doesn't have graduates that graduate here, but does have college students. :) I just think that's a silly basis for an argument.

    ReplyDelete

  8. Oh snap! Blogging drama! Bring it on! Although I'm not sure why anyone would go to the trouble of slamming another blog when they could just go the extra mile, break some actual news, and actually report the story.

    ReplyDelete

What do you think? Please keep your comments civil. Personal attacks are not welcome and do not lead to constructive or even interesting discussion. If you believe a restaurant is in violation of county ordinances please bring that matter to the county health department at (503) 588-5346

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

Other Reviews