A Window of Opportunity for Retailers in the UK  

We’re in a window of opportunity for retailers to develop winning retail location strategies ahead of the competition based upon detailed socio-demographic data and exploiting annual retail space peak availability. 

We develop competitively-advantaged, sector and proposition-specific retail location models. For each assignment, we build a bespoke location attractiveness model building upon on our retail, consumer and geo-spatial expertise and supported by our unique geographic demand databases and market information. 

Our clients receive a robust prioritised rollout strategy together with the handover of a tailor made catchment assessment tool for client use to uncover the most attractive catchments, validate portfolio rationalisation and support the on-going assessment of opportunistic site availability.


Our People and Place Approach

Our retail location experience includes advising major national and international retailers, consumer businesses and real estate portfolio owners. Our approach has been back-tested and proven with Global 100 grocers and retailers. Tailor made and built upon the most robust dataset in the market, key benefits include:

  • Unique 'people and place' geo-spatial and socio-economic demand approach

  • Proprietary supply and demand modelling assets and retail location methodologies

  • Bespoke, category and proposition-advantaged retail location strategy

Our work with UK and international retailers on their physical locations combines consumer insights with big data on the spatial world and the relevant competitive environment. We work with our clients to support decision making in relation to themes such as:

  • Retail catchment strategy and prioritisation

  • Retail footprint rollout potential (white space, competed catchments, opportunistic site availability assessment)

  • Complementary competitor acquisition due diligence

  • Real estate portfolio acquisition assessment

  • Competitor opening risk and/or cannibalisation impact assessment

  • Alignment of ranging / grading strategy to store-specific market environments (also see our multi-channel retail services)

  • Portfolio rationalisation strategy based on diagnosis of drivers of store performance (market vs pitch vs management influence) and multi-channel consumer insight

  • New store format potential

Building a tailor made catchment driver model from the most relevant and powerful data sources for each client is the key to achieving superior insight and competitive advantage beyond the generic geo-demographic and consumer segmentation datasets that are widely available in the marketplace. For example, for the UK market we have socio-economic dataset assets to build this swiftly based on proven correlations with performance. This ensures that our bespoke models have the strongest predictive power for specific categories and propositions. 

We typically start with the fundamental demand drivers of both the specific category and the specific proposition of our client - tailoring the location model to its specific application. This ensures a superior predictive power of our models for your business. The level of spatial granularity also varies - for example convenience store opportunities require a greater granularity of understanding than supermarkets. This quantifies the 'invisible demand' around specific localities - catchments with attractive demand dynamics.

We then look at existing and pipeline supply factors. Key questions to ask regarding the supply side are:

  • Who are the relevant competitors (both specialists and generalists)?

  • How aligned are their specific propositions (eg competing only on particular categories)?

  • How strong is the competition (eg independents vs chains vs multi-nationals)?

  • What are their stated rollout strategies and most recent activity (eg focusing on new store formats, rolling out in certain catchment types etc)?

This quantifies catchments with attractive supply dynamics and when paired with our derived demand algorithms, prioritises catchments based on various metrics, most notably the absolute level of under-supply and latest demand potential.

 

International Retail Location Strategy 

We have worked with major retailers on their international expansion strategies as they look to broaden market access where their differentiated capabilities can make most impact, in both developed and emerging economies. Our unique city-based demand models can be deployed to identify developed and emerging city markets with major growth opportunities - especially focusing on the growth of populations within income bands which are most relevant for a specific proposition.