Brick and Mortar Retail is NOT Dead

Yes, we are all seeing the doom and gloom in the media. And yes, online retail is slowly chipping away at the spend distribution, but over 85% of total retail spent is still done at a physical location. There has been $2.5+ trillion dollar spent at more than 3.5 million brick and mortar establishments.

Over 85% of total retail dollars spent is still done at a physical location

When you look at the closures in detail, you will see the majority of them are traditional retailers like Sears, Abercrombie, GameStop, etc. that have been slow to react to the changing retail landscape.

Out with the old…

Most traditional retailers are still married to their traditional datasets and models in choosing and optimizing their locations—which unfortunately aren’t helping them react to their new retail reality.

For instance, brick and mortar retail is now defined by convenience, personalization, automation, and the quality of the shopping experience.

Brick and mortar retail is now defined by convenience, personalization, automation, and quality of the shopping experience

To better react, these traditional retailers need to understand their local market in a new way, and the MOST IMPORTANT INSIGHT in understanding a local market is knowing where there is demand for your product or service, or simply put, knowing where your customers are.

… in with the new

We are experiencing a retail renaissance led by those who are armed to the teeth with better data, like geo-located demand to help them make smarter decisions for their locations.

That said, not all traditional retailers are stuck in the past. Take Starbucks as an example. Through the success of their mobile order and pay app, they now have a treasure trove of data to help them locate, define, and launch the next 5,000 locations in relation to where they are needed.

Or what about online behemoth Amazon who is leveraging their mountains of local demand data to help them launch the next versions of the grocery, furniture, or even the reinvented bookstore in NYC—essentially coming full-circle. Did you know that Amazon is looking to launch more than 2,000 grocery stores over the next decade? Do you think they will have a competitive advantage over the 2,800 Kroger locations?

Moreover, look no further than emerging clicks-to-bricks retailers like Warby Parker, Bonobos, and Mod Cloth that are using their data to steal market share from their offline vertical incumbents with smaller footprints.

Simply put, better data equals better locations.

Need this data? IdealSpot has you covered

We have carefully curated, modeled, and visualized the best retail datasets to provide the most thorough, balanced, and actionable insights into understanding a local retail market.

Whether it’s traditional datasets like demographics, the movement of a local populace in and out of an area, spending by retail category, the competitive landscape, or new datasets like our unique geo-located demand data—we have it.

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