The success of a brick and mortar business depends largely on its location. It must be easily accessible, attract traffic, and be within your budget at the same time. Unfortunately, many businesses fail to find a profitable location and are forced to settle for lackluster business. The best GIS software can help you find the ideal location by looking at data from different sources. In this article, we discuss the steps to find the best site locations for your business:

1. Identify the Right Location

The first step is to get information about the location based on the key market information available through key big data sources. You can get all the details regarding demographic and traffic movement from various sources. A good location intelligence software will consider several influential factors like households and their residents, age, occupation, buying preferences, average income, purchasing power and more. The system will also offer data sets like public facilities and amenities in the location. These have the potential to generate maximum footfall and can be profitable locations.

2. Evaluate the Location

Once you have considered the facts and shortlisted potential locations, it is time to look at the specific information from each location. You would need to get a good idea of the location’s potential just by looking at it. It is possible to assign values to different KPIs or factors and calculate the location’s worth. For example, a cafe is likely to be more successful in commercial districts, college districts, commercial hotspots, etc. You can assign these elements top values and then compare different locations to see how they rank.

3. Understand the Potential

Not all locations are ideal, but they can have a lot of potential. Some businesses prefer a location that is already popular and successful. These can be expensive and have tough competition, but it might be easier to establish a new branch or business at such a location. However, some less successful locations can have good potential too. These might require a lower investment and may have lesser competition, but they can be a challenge to develop. You will need to invest more effort into marketing and promotion to get business off the ground at such locations. Fortunately, the retail location analytics will provide you the insights to help you make a fact-based decision.

4. Prospective Sales

You can use location analytics in retail to determine the prospective sales you can expect. The software can analyse the purchasing power in general as well as the purchasing power in relation to specific products. For example, car sale businesses will thrive in established neighborhoods with prospective customers who have high purchasing power. This software will conduct a thorough analysis based on your ideal target customer.

It is easier to run a successful business with the right location and you can do that with a good location mapping software.