You likely have a general idea of what makes your store tick. Quantify that intuition by using comparison reports. You may want to evaluate the drivers for success at your current locations, explore what factors provide success for a competing brand, or compare your best location with a prospective site side by side.
Using comparison reports
Comparison reports give you the ability to directly compare two locations based on their demographics and POIs which makes reporting a lot more dynamic.
You can compare potential expansion locations, different districts or where your competitors are going. In this article, we'll go over how to use comparison reports to help determine what makes a location successful.
1. Create a layer of points or use your existing locations
All the locations that you want to compare should be together in one list. If you're using your existing locations or have a very large set of points, you can select the locations to compare using batch reporting.
2. Select the demographic data you want to compare
Using the Target Market panel, add in all the demographics you want to assess in the report. There are two options here:
Learn what type of person describes your top performing locations’ customer base. Use high-level demographics like Total Population and Daytime Population along with averages such as Median Household Income, Median Age, and Average Household size to see what patterns emerge. Once you know the averages, you can start to explore the different ranges of the variables.
You know what demographic variables describe your ideal customer profile. Enter the demographics you know would be helpful for your business and compare which locations outperform the others.
3. Add in the Anchors and Competitors that define your market
Using the POI Panel, enter the businesses and the categories of businesses that define your market.
4. Build the report
Once you have all your points and trade areas ready, click Create Comparison at the top of the interface and click Add all in View. Click Create Comparison Report. to build the report.
5. Export the report
Once in the comparison report, navigate to the Demographics tab and click Export Table to bring the data into Excel.
6. Organize your data
With your report exported to Excel, you have the flexibility to further explore the data. For example, to analyze the makeup of the location around your successful locations, colour code each site according to high, mid and low performance (or however you qualify success). Format your data as a table and identify a demographic that looks as though it is higher or lower depending on the success of the store. Sort the locations based on that demographic and see if there is a trend in the sales of your stores.
Perhaps in this table, you identified that the success of your stores correlates with areas that have more households with an income of $70,000-$100,000.
With more locations and expansive sales data, it's easy to notice trends in your data and start to develop an ideal profile for your customers. This information can then be used infer likely success during the site selection process.