Doing Math on Ishpeming's State of Business
- Garrett Paquette
- Jan 22
- 3 min read
Updated: Jan 23
Economic Realities of "Supply and Demand" in Small Towns
By Garrett Paquette · January 22, 2026
Before we talk about big ideas, franchises, or growth, it helps to start with a very modest baseline. Imagine a small, owner-operated business where the goal is simply to:
Pay the owner about minimum wage
Cover basic storefront expenses (rent, utilities, insurance)
Stay open without growth plans, employees, or excess profit
When you add those basics together, you land around:
$45,000 per year
That’s not a high income. It’s not “getting rich.” It’s just keeping the lights on and paying the owner for their time. Let’s do some math to translate that $3,750/month minimum into what's required to keep those lights on...
Low-Ticket Retail
Avg item: $30 per customer
Required sales: 500 items/month
≈ 17 items/day
Every day. Including winter. Including slow weeks.
Mid-Ticket Retail
Avg item: $60
Required sales: 250 items/month
≈ 8–9 items/day
Still very demanding in a small market.
Tourist Spikes (Seasonal Reality)
Summer months: maybe $20k+
Winter months: maybe $6–8k
Annual average might still miss the mark unless:
Cash is banked aggressively
Owner accepts winter stress
More Factors in the Survivability of a Business in Ishpeming
When we talk about whether a business can survive in a city like Ishpeming, population size isn’t just a statistic — it’s a hard limit on demand.
Ishpeming has about 6,200 residents, but that does not mean there are 6,200 potential customers for every business. In reality, the number of people who regularly spend discretionary money locally is much smaller.
Why the Full Population Isn’t the Customer Base
Some groups, for completely normal reasons, don’t drive ongoing local spending:
Children and teens don’t control household spending
Many seniors live on fixed incomes and spend cautiously
Lower-income households prioritize essentials over non-essential purchases
Commuters and online shoppers often spend their money outside the city
Once you account for these realities, the pool of people who can and do spend discretionary money locally on a regular basis is likely closer to 1,500–2,000 people, not 6,200.
That number matters a lot.
What “Volume” Really Means in a Small City
When a business needs to “sell more,” that doesn’t mean abstract revenue — it means real people saying yes, over and over again.
Here’s where the math starts to clash with population size.
A modest storefront business with a 25% margin that needs about $45,000 per year to survive must sell roughly:
$180,000 per year
$15,000 per month
Depending on the price of what’s being sold, that can mean:
8–13 sales every day, year-round
Including slow weeks, winter months, and off-seasons
In a town with 1,500–2,000 likely local spenders, that requires a large share of the same people to buy frequently, with very little money leaking elsewhere.
That’s a tall order.
Where the Mismatch Happens
This is where many well-intentioned ideas quietly struggle.
Low-margin businesses depend on:
Frequent purchases
High transaction counts
Consistent daily traffic
But small cities naturally have:
Limited population
Infrequent discretionary buying
Seasonal swings
Strong competition from online shopping
If the required volume exceeds what the population can realistically supply, the business doesn’t fail because people didn’t care — it fails because the demand ceiling was too low.
Why This Isn’t About Blame
This isn’t about residents “not supporting local enough,” and it isn’t about business owners “not working hard enough.” ("Economic leakage" is another topic altogether...)
It’s about alignment.
Some business models require:
Thousands of transactions per month
Others can survive on:
Dozens of higher-value transactions
Both can be good ideas — but only some fit a city of this size.
The Takeaway
In a small city, demand is real but finite. Businesses that require more volume than the population can reasonably provide are structurally disadvantaged from the start.
Understanding this doesn’t shut ideas down — it's meant to help the community focus energy on business models that are more likely to survive, adapt, and stay open long-term contributing to the community's interests and ideas.
How much do you spend at local businesses every day?
At least $5
$10
$20
$30
