It’s a retailer’s worst nightmare. After making the huge investment required to open a new location and after months – sometimes years – of preparation, the facility finally opens. But within a few weeks, it becomes painfully clear that the surprisingly low customer turnout during the opening week was not just a one time fluke. Slowly it sinks in that the site is not going to meet its sales projection and eventually, somewhere down the line, heads are going to roll.
Incorrect assessment of the competitive environment has been the root cause of a surprisingly large number of new facility failures. In some cases, particularly for a business owner with relatively few outlets, these failures have been significant enough to jeopardize the viability of the entire company. But often the damage could easily have been avoided by simply obtaining reliable competitive data at the start.
Area Research Associates is one of the most experienced firms in the country at providing accurate market intelligence of the competitive environment. Our trained professionals are backed by decades of working in the field and take the time required to obtain information you can rely on. There is simply no short cut to obtaining the quality of data necessary to make the best site selection decisions, often the ones that determine your company’s success. Custom databases of various types are available at all levels of market geography.