“I tell my customers all the time: there is no better way for a retailer to make high quality, informed decisions at scale than with Placer.ai. There’s no tool, no GIS system that can tell you what Placer does; it’s true trade area gives us true apples to apples comparisons and helps us make decisions with confidence.”

~ JJ Perino, Founder & President, TwoTen‍

The Challenge

A Trade Area Shift Dampers the Success of a 30 Year Old Mall Store

In late 2020, Luxottica had two LensCrafters locations in Harrisburg, PA – one at the Colonial Park Mall and the other at Harrisburg Mall a few miles south. The Colonial Park mall saw declining traffic, and the store’s sales were significantly below average compared to the rest of the LensCrafters chain.

A mall tenant for over 30 years, the lease was set to expire in 2021. The founder and president of consulting company TwoTen, JJ Perino, was brought in to assist with Luxottica’s real estate strategy, including the repositioning of the Colonial Park store. He needed to assess whether to close or move the store, and to determine if a nearby center, The Shoppes at Susquehanna, would be the right option for a move, all while considering how to limit the impact on the Harrisburg Mall location.

As a customer of Placer, JJ knew mobile location data would be instrumental in his analysis.

The Solution

Placer Data Suggests Colonial Park Suffered from Cannibalization

JJ analyzed how much cannibalization was already occurring between the two stores, comparing the trade area and overall cross-shopping.

Placer’s foot traffic data revealed a significant trade area overlap; the Harrisburg Mall drew traffic regionally and its trade area covered all of Colonial Park’s, whereas Colonial Park drew from a far smaller area.

Research into cross-shopping between Colonial Park Mall and Harrisburg Mall revealed similar details: close to 19% of shoppers (106k people) at Colonial Park Mall also shop at the Harrisburg Mall, while 11% (113k) of shoppers at the Harrisburg Mall also shop at the Colonial Park Mall.

Learn more about Favorite Places

High cross-shopping between the two locations, and a trade area that completely covered the other, suggested that there was cannibalization between the two Lenscrafters stores and validated the decision to move.

Shoppes at Susquehanna: Better Demographics, Less Cannibalization

TwoTen found that cross shopping between the new potential location, The Shoppes at Susquehanna, and the Harrisburg Mall was far lower at 34k people (vs. 106k cross shoppers for Colonial Park), suggesting less cannibalization from the Harrisburg Mall if the store moved the Colonial Park Mall location to The Shoppes at Susquehanna.

Looking at the trade areas, they found that The Shoppes at Susquehanna pulled from the same area as Colonial Park, but also pulled a significant amount from the west and north, suggesting that the new location would reach new areas compared to the Harrisburg Mall, which pulled further south.

Learn more about Trade Area

Finally, Placer showed that The Shoppes at Susquehanna not only draws a larger population (293k to 246k,) but a higher household income HHI ($84k vs. $73k, or a difference of about 12%) than Colonial Park Mall.

Learn more about Audience Profile

‍The Outcome

SUCCESS: Moving to Susquehanna Boosts Sales Nearly 20%

With this data in hand, TwoTen recommended that Luxottica reposition the LensCrafters store by moving out of the Colonial Park Mall and into The Shoppes at Susquehanna.  Once the store was stabilized, JJ and team were happy to note that the sales at Susquehanna were almost 20% higher than the old location at Colonial Park. Additionally,the Harrisburg location saw no decrease in sales due to any cannibalization; in fact, sales at Harrisburg Mall actually increased after the other location’s move, validating TwoTen’s Placer-driven insights.

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