National Retailers Aren’t Flying Over Rural America Anymore

July 3, 2024

The U.S.’s rural population is growing after 10 years otherwise. Retailers have noticed the moves — and the purchasing power of those households.

According to the latest U.S. Department of Agriculture data, Net migration to non-metro areas rose a quarter of a percent from July 2020 through June 2022, a sharp turnaround from the contraction that occurred each year from 2010 through 2016 and the flatness each year from 2017 through 2020.

The USDA also noted that among the U.S.’s 58 million non-metro-area households, median household income is 15% higher than the countrywide average. Combined with the lower cost of living, this means rural consumers have higher discretionary purchasing power. That’s a populace that’s highly attractive to retailers.

Elliott Cook — Retail Strategies director of real estate for the Retail Academy division, which teaches communities to attract retailers — said rural markets have several advantages over urban markets.

“They [rural markets] offer developable land, they have good vacancy and they were incredibly resilient during the pandemic,” he said.

Indeed, the list of national retailers opening in rural and tertiary locales is growing from longtime staples like Tractor Supply Co. and Dollar General to others like Petco and Lowe’s.

Last spring, Lowe’s announced it would open 300 stores in the South, Midwest and Northeast that add farm, ranch and outdoor products to the typical offerings of Lowe’s stores. “While in years past, our penetration of rural and remote stores was viewed as a competitive disadvantage, we now expect that these stores will be a key component of our operating profit growth over the next three to five years,” president and CEO Marvin Ellison said at the time.