Retail
The general retail siting model, for when the format is not yet decided or does not have its own playbook.
What it weighs most
Traffic and visibility
30% of the score. The rest is on this page.
01 / The problem
Every retail format claims the same trade area and then lives or dies on completely different things. A model that treats them alike will confidently recommend a site that works for somebody else's business.
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.
Whether this location supports retail at all
Traffic, visibility, access and the spend that is actually there, before the format conversation starts.
Which format fits what is here
The income, the density and the co-tenancy decide the format. Not the other way round.
Who is already capturing the spend
And whether what leaks out of this trade area is enough to build on.
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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What type of retail business is this?
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Inline, or a standalone location?
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.
Traffic and visibility
Demographics and spending
Consumer spending index and Tapestry
Competition and co-tenancy
Site and access
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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A 10-minute drive-time trade area, with competitors pulled from a five-mile radius.
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Retail leakage and surplus analysis is part of the run, not an add-on.
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Scores band at 8.0 excellent, 6.5 good, 5.0 fair. Below 5.0 means insufficient traffic or demand.
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The traffic threshold deliberately floats, because it depends on the retail type. That is what the sub-playbooks are for.
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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Retail leakage is computed from real spending data, not estimated from population and a rule of thumb.
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The format has its own playbook underneath this one, because a pharmacy and a car wash do not fail for the same reasons.
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Co-tenancy is treated as a factor, not a footnote, because it is what actually drives the traffic.
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
- Esri Tapestry
- Census
- Traffic counts
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 Retail 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.