Celebrating One Year of The Mid-South Retail Blog!

I had this set to post at 3:17 today... and of course it didn't work out. Better late than never though :P

Last year on March 17th I began this journey, and today we meet again to celebrate St. Patrick's Day, also known as the one-year anniversary of the Mid-South Retail Blog! As I mentioned in my first-ever post, I was encouraged to start this journey by Albertsons Florida Blog (on flickr), as a means to host my comprehensive list of Memphis metro Kroger stores and their respective décor packages. Well, I took that one step further, as I'm sure you all know today! I feel like I've accomplished a great deal more than I expected, and it's been tons of fun. I want to thank each and every one of you who have checked out the blog before, and doubly thank those of you who have returned time and time again. It's humbling to know that you've enjoyed this as well!

Since that Metro Listing post is essentially where it all started, I thought today would be as good a day as any to note that it has been updated to reflect many changes that have occurred since its original posting. Additionally, thanks to an anonymous commenter, the table has been reorganized by store number, and should hopefully be easier to read based on store address and/or community. Feel free to take a peek at the post here!

Speaking of anonymous comments: firstly, I'd like to thank all of you who have commented for doing so - I truly appreciate the conversation and interest you take in our content. However, it's gotten somewhat confusing at times to know if an anonymous commenter is a returning commenter or someone completely different - a good problem to have on the grand scale of things, but something I'd like to clear up. I ask that from now on you post comments with a username via the Name/URL option. The great Acme Style blog has a post detailing how this can be done here: please check it out! The Name/URL option does not actually require a URL, thereby allowing you to remain essentially anonymous and retain your privacy while making it easier for me and others to know who we're talking to on different posts. For the time being, the anonymous option will remain intact, but I would definitely prefer if you'd consider adopting a username.

Returning to the topic at hand... To commemorate the anniversary, I figured why not (in the vein of AFB) include a few statistics? At the time of this writing, the Mid-South Retail Blog has received 7,652 visitors since its inception - you can track this yourself now with the addition of a new widget in the blog's footer. In January of this year we received our highest monthly amount of pageviews, peaking very close to 1,000 at 969! That Metro Listing post I mentioned has been pretty popular with 118 views, but comes nowhere close to the all-time most-visited post, the similarly updated Tanger Outlets Southaven Complete Store Listing, which has garnered to date 284 views, with the Kroger Millennium Décor post trailing in second place with 202 views. The Tanger post also holds the record for most user activity with 19 comments.

Even after one year on the web and so many visitors and comments, I'm still not quite sure what exactly the mission of the Mid-South Retail Blog is. Is this a Kroger-centric site? A hub for regional retail news? Or simply a host for feature posts, such as my personal favorite highlighting South Lake Centre? Honestly, I'm thinking it's a blend of all that and more... and what is certain is that I look forward to continuing to share content and comments with all of you for the next 365 days. :)

For my next post (the blog's 30th!), we'll be taking a look around the Memphis Kmart - that's coming up next weekend. Until then, and as always, thank you for following the Mid-South Retail Blog, and have fun exploring the retail world wherever you are!

Retail Retell