A CONSULTING FIRM hired by the City of Fairfield shows the Fairfield retail trade area as within about a 20-minute drive from town. The city is working with the firm to bring businesses to Fairfield. People in the trade area around Fairfield spend some $234 million each year, according to information recently collected by a Fort Worth company for the City of Fairfield.

"Of that amount, $103 million is spent outside of the trade area, resulting in retail 'leakage'," says Fairfield community development director Liz Thornton.

The information, along with many other types of consumer facts, was collected and compiled for the city by Buxton Company, a group who uses retail data to best answer the question, "Who is my customer?"

Goal of the city is to best identify businesses and restaurants that would make a good match with Fairfield. Statistics of area buying habits could help convince a business to relocate here.

More interesting statistics from Buxton state that 24,000 vehicles are clocked each day at the intersection of highway 84 and interstate 45, there are 4,700 households in our trade area, and that the average annual household income is more than $51,000.

"Buxton is providing a more accurate picture of Fairfield's buying capacity, and, in the process, is helping us learn the language of retailers," Mrs. Thornton says.

"Historically, smaller communities do not attract retail," she says. "We are trying to target which retailers we want to pursue."

Buxton garners data that is collected when consumers provide their zip code when making purchases.

"We all know from living in this area that most of the dollars being `leaked' are going to Mexia, Palestine and Corsicana," Mrs. Thornton says. "We're trying to bring retailers here to Fairfield to keep those dollars in our trade area," she adds.

Fairfield's retail trade area includes the city and an area marked by about a 15-20 minute drive in all directions, and includes Richland, Streetman, Wortham, Kirvin, Teague and Buffalo.

"The city is exploring ways to recruit businesses where Fairfield citizens shop and make their purchases," Mrs. Thornton says. "We are looking for businesses that won't cannibalize or reduce an existing store's customer base and sales."

All of this effort is part of the City of Fairfield's retail economic development and revitalization project. "We're excited about the ongoing efforts to recruit businesses that suit our consumers," Mrs. Thornton notes.

First part of the Retail Site Assessment from Buxton offers a customer profile---snapshots of customers that reside in Fairfield's trade area. The customers were segmented according to buying habits and lifestyles.

The report shows that the three largest segments of residents here are hardy rural families, rugged rural style and coal and crops.

Hardy rural families include mostly married couples, with a single wage earner, who are high school educated and have jobs in agriculture, construction and transportation. They share active outdoor lifestyles, and pursue activities like hiking, boat- ing and gardening. Their social lives revolve around fraternal orders, veterans clubs and church groups.

Rugged rural style households pursue oldfashioned country lifestyles. Hunting, fishing, gardening and needlework are all popular in this segment. For social activities, residents gather at the area church or fraternal order.

Coal and crops cluster of households work primarily in the mining and farming industries and also lead an old-fashioned way of life. They enjoy gardening, fishing, hunting and horseback riding, and with their teenage children, baseball, football and target shooting. In these conservative and patriotic communities, residents are regular church-goers and buy American.

The Buxton report points out that by overlaying Fairfield's customer profile with more than 4,500 retail matching profiles in Buxton's database, major categories of retail that are candidates for location in Fairfield were identified. With that information, Fairfield can make more informed decisions about investments in inftrastructure and can focus resources on areas of retail development potential.

Founded in 1994, Buxton is the industry leader in market planning and marketing services for retail stores and restaurants, healthcare organizations, consumer packaged goods companies and government and municipalities.

The report expected next week should include leakage and surplus analysis that identifies which major store types attract sales to the Fairfield trade area and which stores are losing sales to outside retailers.