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A change in the retail market around LSU, marked by several national chains abandoning the North Gates area, is being caused by the popularity of e-commerce among college students, one commercial Realtor says.

Beau Box of Beau Box Commercial Real Estate cites the closings of Gap, Claire’s Accessories and The Athlete’s Foot and the shaky status of Blockbuster Video as evidence that computer-savvy students are making more online purchases.

“With the Internet, students don’t need to go to stores,” Box says. “And they can order movies online.”

Nearly 4 million members of Generation Y--people born in the 1980s--shopped online in 2005, according to a report from Forrester Research. That number is expected to grow to nearly 5 million by 2011.

“There’s no question that young adults were the first to embrace online shopping,” says Ellen Davis, a spokeswoman for the National Retail Federation. “They’ve been using the technology since kindergarten.”

Davis says she’s not sure how much of an impact e-commerce has on local retailers. While electronics, books and CDs can be easily purchased online, examining an item such as clothing or jewelry or trying it on is still part of the shopping experience. And impulse buying remains an important consumer activity for all shoppers.

“Online retailing makes up for as much business as it takes away from traditional stores,” Davis says. Stores with strong Web presences say that the Internet drives 20% of their in-store sales, she says.

Jared Loftus, owner of The Tiger District, which sells LSU apparel and souvenir items, doesn’t think online shopping has had much of an impact on his Highland Road store. The Tiger District is a special case; much of its sales come from football game days as well as students returning to school. “Our sales are more emotionally driven,” he says.

Loftus says the LSU market is friendlier toward local retailers and not big corporate chains. He thinks the reason shops like Claire’s and The Athlete’s Foot folded is that they weren’t a good fit for the market. Claire's is popular with pre-teen and teen-age girls, while The Athlete's Foot is known for pricey sneakers.

Just down Chimes Street, Gabe Harvey says he wants the Internet to play a big role for Storyville, the T-shirt boutique he co-owns. Harvey says the Web is an effective way for him to get out news about his store, which opened two months ago, and the custom clothes sold there.

“This allows us to sell to the whole world and not just to the LSU area,” he says. “This will help us once summer gets here and things slow down.”

Store owners with online presence like Harvey and Loftus show the importance of e-commerce in the student market, says Bill Black, a marketing professor at LSU’s E.J. Ourso College of Business who has an interest in e-commerce. “They’re responding to what they see as a rising demand,” he says. “They’re looking at a dual distribution strategy. You can pick up things online or offline.”

Tens of thousands of LSU students with laptops and PCs are shopping at Amazon.com, OldNavy.com or iTunes, turning dorm rooms, Greek houses and off-campus apartments into “virtual competitors,” Black says. “You’re competing for those sets of shoppers, but you can’t see their stores.”

Black says the fear that online shopping will significantly change LSU-area retail may be overblown. There are all sorts of products that students regularly buy¾groceries, toiletries, beer--where e-commerce doesn’t make sense. “You're not going to buy milk online,” Davis says.

Taylor Stone, an executive vice president with University Partners, which plans to build nearly 30,000 square feet of retail space near LSU, including an apartment complex/shopping center at the site of the old University Shopping Center, says he hasn’t seen any change in the types of retailers who want to be near campus.

Stone wouldn’t talk about any potential tenants, but says, “We’re still hearing from restaurants and coffee shops.”

George Kurz, who leases the retail space that housed Gap and is now home to The Tiger District, says factors other than the Internet are changing the retail makeup around campus. For one, there’s more of a retail presence on campus. Barnes & Noble runs the Union bookstore, Pizza Hut and Blimpie’s have counters in the Union and there’s a CC’s Coffeehouse in the Middleton Library.

Kurz says LSU students are more affluent and spread out across the city than they were a few years ago. That’s because of things like the TOPS scholarship program, which covers tuition costs for qualified Louisiana-born students, and new areas for student housing. Some of the students who would have lived and shopped near campus are now going to the Mall of Louisiana or Towne Center at Cedar Lodge. “They’re more of a part of the overall Baton Rouge retail market,” he says.

Kurz says while there are retail vacancies around campus, they’re more of a result of problems with leases and the lack of parking than any underlying weakness. “LSU will remain an important retail market,” he says.