Selecting a new site as part of a brand or franchise expansion is an expensive, long-lasting, and high-potential decision, one that operators or venture partners sometimes assist with. To help with determining the best site, it’s important to compare factors such as demographics, competition density, cannibalization, and trade area population size for each potential site with existing, high-performing stores already within the chain. Placer’s Site Selection analysis does all of that for you.

You’ll be able to answer these questions after reading this article:

1. Which sites have the highest demographic fit with your top stores?
2. Which metropolitans within a given state do your stores best align with? 
3. How do the top-ranked sites differ based on your target demographic characteristics?

Please note: there are two different site selection options outlined below, including a standard report available for all customers (option 1), and a more advanced site selection tool offered as part of the Placer Marketplace (option 2).

Get started with the following steps:

OPTION 1: Placer XTRA

This option uses a standard Placer XTRA report available to all customers.

Step 1: Request a Placer XTRA Site Selection: By Similarity report

This report helps you understand which shopping centers have a similar demographic profile to your top locations. It allows you to choose attributes around transportation, housing type, age, marital status, HHI, ethnicity, and more.

a. Navigate to the Advanced Reports page and click on Placer XTRA in the left sidebar.

Learn about Placer XTRA

b. Click on Site Selection: By Similarity (you can first filter by clicking on Retail under Reports Catalog).

c. Fill in the relevant fields:

• Search for your shopping center POI^{Point (Location) of Interest.} in the Name/Placer Id field. 
• In the Date Range field, select the date range that you want to analyze prospective sites and your locations.
• In the Additional Top Locations (CSV) field, upload a CSV file that contains just the names and addresses of the top-performing stores that are the most similar to potential sites.
• Select the state in which shopping centers with similar demographics to your top venues can be found.
• Choose the weighting for each attribute, with options for no weighting, regular weighting, or double weighting.

d. A sample CSV is included in the instructions for the report. 

e. When the form is complete, click Submit Request. This report has a 4-7 business day turnaround time. When complete, a report detailing the score for each shopping center site will be sent directly to the requester.

Pro Tip: While the Site Selection: By Similarity report analyzes only shopping center locations, it can also be used when analyzing sites that are not part of a shopping center, or that have not yet been developed. In those cases, you can look at the similarity scores for multiple nearby shopping centers and use those scores as proxies for the score an undeveloped site or standalone location may receive.

OPTION 2: Site Selection Report

This option uses the increased functionality of the Site Selection advanced report, offered as part of the Placer Marketplace.

Watch a quick walkthrough of the Site Selection report in this video.

Step 1: Open a Site Selection advanced report tailored to a specific chain

This report helps you understand which potential sites have a strong fit when compared to your top locations. It allows you to choose attributes around demographics, competition density, cannibalization, trade area size, desired co-tenants, and more.

a. Navigate to the Advanced Reports page and click on Site Selection in the left sidebar.

b. Click on Add New Report.

c. Select the chain of interest then run the site selection report. Search for your chain by typing the chain’s name in the Search Chain field. If needed, you can filter chains by category in the All Categories field.

d. Once you find the chain of interest, click Open Report.

e. After selecting Open Report, a map will surface showing all current locations within an area (blue pins) along with a list of all potential sites in the area (green pins). Each potential site has a relative site score on the side. 

f. Use the search bar at the top to search for and evaluate a specific location.

Step 2: Customize the parameters and settings most important to your search

a. Click on the filter icon at the top right.

b. Adjust the parameters using different sections - Site Type, Score Benchmark, Filters, and Score Settings. 

 c. You can filter to view sites by specific shopping centers, or change the view and query broader retail areas called retail nodes.

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d. For Score Benchmark, you can choose to benchmark a possible site or retail node against the entire chain, or against a subset of that chain’s stores in the CBSA, DMA, or state.

e. Click on Filters to adjust the search to focus on parameters of greatest interest, including type of shopping center, trade area population, cannibalization, demographic fit, monthly visits, and co-tenancy (tenants you want to be nearby, or tenants you want to ensure are not co-tenants).

f. Click on Score Settings to mark which attributes are the most important when considering a new site for your retail chain. All scores are evenly weighted by default, but can be adjusted as desired.

Under Score Profile Configuration, you may specify demographic attributes to factor into the calculation, as well as the cluster of chain locations against which you wish to compare (including custom tags). You can also define specific chains or categories as competitors and select the preferred level of competition density for your new site.

Step 3: Analyze each of the remaining sites for further insights

After refining the site selection search, you can now analyze each location to understand its strengths and weaknesses compared to existing stores within your chain, then make a decision on the best possible site.

a. Click on a property of interest (green icon) to see its initial details, including the overall relative fit score, trade area population, demographic fit, and expected trade area. Click on Open Match Analysis to see the rest.

b. Analyze the specifics of each site to confidently determine whether it would be a good site for a new location.

Pro Tip: While the Site Selection advanced report analyzes only shopping center locations, it can also be used when analyzing sites that are not part of a shopping center, or that have not yet been developed. In those cases, you can look at the similarity scores for multiple nearby shopping centers and use those scores as proxies for the score an undeveloped site or standalone location may receive.

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