Expansion
Where to grow next, weighed against the locations you already run, so the new one does not eat the old one.
What it weighs most
Market potential
30% of the score. The rest is on this page.
01 / The problem
The next location is easy to justify and hard to justify honestly, because the cannibalisation never makes it into the pitch. The store opens, the numbers look fine, and the one four miles away quietly bleeds.
02 / The decisions it serves
Not a report. A decision somebody has to sign.
Each of these is a question your team already asks, and currently answers with a spreadsheet, a phone call and a fortnight.
Where to go next
Ten markets, ranked, rather than the one somebody already liked.
Whether it will eat what you already have
Trade-area overlap modelled against your existing footprint, before the lease rather than after the first year.
Whether it fits how you actually operate
A market you cannot staff or supply is not an opportunity.
03 / What it asks you first
It would rather ask than assume.
The answer changes completely depending on these, so it will not guess at them in order to look fast.
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How many locations do you run today?
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Any geographic preferences, or constraints you cannot cross?
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Who is your ideal customer?
04 / The method, in the open
Here is exactly what it weighs. Argue with it.
Most tools will not show you this, because most tools do not have it. These are the weights the playbook really uses.
Market potential
Competitive landscape
Cannibalisation risk
The one everybody underestimates
Operational fit
05 / It is willing to say no
It does not hand you numbers. It gives you a verdict.
An assistant that only ever agrees with you is a mirror, not an analyst. This one holds a line, names the thing that kills the deal, and will tell you to walk away from a site you already like.
The thresholds it holds you to
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Priority market at 8.0 or better: expand here first.
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Strong candidate at 6.5: add it to the pipeline.
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Watchlist at 5.0: monitor, do not commit.
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Below 5.0 it does not meet the criteria, and it says so.
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Ten candidate markets, ranked, not one recommendation you have to take on faith.
What it will not let you ignore
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Cannibalisation is the number one risk in expansion, so trade-area overlap against your existing locations is always modelled. A new site that only works by eating an old one is not growth.
06 / Why not just ask an AI
A fluent answer and a defensible one are not the same thing.
Every model will answer a location question now, and most of the answers sound right. Ask twice and you get two of them. Ask where the number came from and the room goes quiet.
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Cannibalisation carries a quarter of the score. It is the single most underestimated risk in expansion, and the one a general model will never raise unprompted.
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It ranks ten candidates rather than confirming one, which is the difference between analysis and agreement.
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It knows where your locations already are, because you brought them. A model working from public data does not.
07 / What it runs on, and what you get
The data underneath
Licensed and authoritative, and named in the output, so the number keeps its source when it travels.
- Esri GeoEnrichment
- Census
- Your existing locations
What you walk out with
A scored assessment against every factor above, on the live map, with the method beside it.
The method it used and the vintage of every number travel with it, so it still holds up when somebody asks you why in six months.
How an answer travels08 / It pairs with
Nobody makes one decision in isolation. Most teams run this alongside two or three of these.
Run Expansion on something you already decided. See if it agrees with you.
The honest test of a method is whether it reaches the conclusion your best analyst already reached, and tells you plainly when it does not.
Twenty minutes, and you can argue with the weights.