Trade Area Analysis, Development
and Mapping
Trade area analysis and mapping describe the characteristics of the area around a store or network of stores. Without accurate trade area definitions, you cannot measure the key statistics that impact a store's performance.
Use trade area analysis to aid site selection and target marketing.
Trade area analysis and mapping tell you:
- Where a store's customers are coming from
- How many customers you have in a trade area
- Where to look for for more customers
Benefits of Trade Area Analysis
- Identify gaps or overlaps in the market coverage of your existing store network, and make corrections by opening, closing or moving stores
- Make better site selection decisions by using characteristics of existing trade areas to predict trade areas around potential locations
- Define a geographic area to analyze for market potential, market penetration, and competitive threats
- Become more efficient and effective at target marketing by reaching out only to those customers and prospects in a store's trade area
- Use as a key input into customer profiling
Factors that Impact Trade Areas
Analyzing trade areas should be performed regularly to provide key metrics for improving sales and marketing performance.
Adding new stores to your network will cause the trade area of nearby stores to change. In a saturated market, or if stores are placed too close to one another, cannibalization can occur.
A change to product offerings will impact the trade area, as will shifts in population and demographics, the existence of competitors, changes to highways and roads, and the addition of other businesses that attract people to the area.
Trade Area Analysis: What We Can Do for You
Trade area analysis is a primary analytic service performed by Mapping Analytics. We have the people, experience, tools, and data required to perform sophisticated multi-site and multi-region trade area analyses.
We also provide applications, software, data, and training to help you develop "in-house" trade area analysis capability.
A trade area analysis typically includes:
- Mapping existing customers in relation to store locations
- Calculating distance/drive times from customers to store locations
- Determining all variables that define and impact your trade areas
- Developing a model for predicting trade areas around new sites
- Using the results as an input into analyzing market potential or customer profiling or to help make decisions about site selection or targeted marketing
