ROIC analytics - Retail Market Intelligence

Market Opportunity

Site Selection

How do retailers choose their real estate sites? Many retailers rely on brokers to bring them sites. It is assumed that the broker understands what a successful site for each retailer looks like. Despite the level of experience the broker may possess and his or her best intentions, it is highly unlikely that the broker has a sophisticated process for determining if a location will work for his or her client. In most cases, the broker has a "hot" site that s/he will shop around to retailers that fit the profile of the shopping center. Even if the broker has tools to evaluate store potential, his or her ultimate goal is to lease a shopping center, not ensure that you meet your sales goals.

For this reason, larger retailers often employ their own real estate team to find sites. Just like their broker counterparts, these real estate teams rarely have the tools to find the best sites. Instead, they use their market experience and "gut feel" to find sites which are later evaluated by a site evaluation or sales forecasting process. This trial-and-error process has worked successfully for many retailers over the past several decades. It has also resulted in wasted capital and resources, inferior store networks, under-potential stores, and costly relocations and closures. Up until recently, the only viable alternative has been to complete expensive "macro" market studies that evaluate every possible market location and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars per market. Although we believe retailers should have a process for evaluating sites, we have a better process for effectively finding the best sites.

Market Opportunity leverages sophisticated spatial models and market expertise to provide a blueprint for success in a market. Just like macro market studies, Market Opportunity evaluates all possible locations in the market for viability. But unlike macro market studies, Market Opportunity uses high-powered models to simulate a store opening at thousands of locations across the market; then, interpolates all locations in between. The result is a measure of your store's performance at any possible location in the market.

With a map of Market Opportunity in hand, your real estate team or broker is focused on finding and securing sites that are both individually successful and support a successful growth strategy. Your research team only completes costly sales forecasting studies on sites that have been pre-screened for success or those on the bubble. The impact to the bottom line is lower real estate and research costs and faster turnaround. Most importantly, your company has the confidence that you are acting on the best sites in the market, not just sites that are good enough.

Competitive Intelligence

Stores do not operate in a vacuum. Competition has some effect on every retail facility. In recent years, understanding competition has become more challenging as several channels compete for the same product line, large general merchandisers like Walmart capture a greater share of numerous retail categories, and loyalty is a diminishing concept as consumers demonstrate that they are willing to split their dollars amongst several stores.

Our analysts have decades of experience assessing the competitive landscape, whether it be at a site or market level or for the entire U.S. We work with top data sources and we deploy our experienced analysts to the field to collect data firsthand.  We also have developed processes that simulate consumer-competition interaction to help clarify the competitive picture in an area when needed.  For many concepts, understanding market-level and regional brand acceptance is just as important as individual competitive interaction.  For these studies, completing a Market Share Analysis helps highlight which competitors are formidable, which competitors are faltering, and which brands are likely to expand or enter the market and be a challenge in the future. 

Market Opportunity is deployable in any market in the U.S., whether you currently operate in the market or if you're evaluating a market entry.  Our team of market experts have evaluated thousands of sites for many retailers across the country and we continue to expand our expertise in new markets. In recent years we have completed projects in the following markets: