Catchment Analysis
If you don’t know who your shoppers are, how can you give them what they want? If you don’t know where they come from, how can you communicate with them?
Finding answers to these questions is vital but catchment analysis can be a time-consuming and expensive process. Many centre managers have found that the cost-effective analysis performed by FSP gives unrivalled return on their investment. The benefits include the power to target promotions and advertise more effectively, and an enhanced understanding of which retailers you need to attract to your centre.
At the heart of FSP’s catchment reports is actual shopper behaviour. Whilst other consultants use theoretical models or drive-time analysis, FSP believes in choosing the most appropriate model for the project and utilising tools such as actual shopper surveys or the National Survey of Local Shopping Patterns (NSLSP) for larger centres. This national survey, which has been conducted since 1996, draws responses from over 6 million households and has proven to be a robust and reliable guide to locating main shopping venues used by UK shoppers for food, non-food and bulky goods. To enhance its information, FSP has recently added to its toolbox of analysis techniques with the ACORN system of classification (A Classification Of Residential Neighbourhoods). It combines geography with demographics and lifestyle information – places where people live with their underlying characteristics and behaviour – to create a tool for understanding the different types of people in different areas throughout the country. FSP also uses postcodes collected from shoppers and other town centre users to identify catchment areas. The resulting data is analysed to identify differences between centre and in-town shoppers, weekend and weekday shoppers, and seasonal influences. Customer penetration of the catchment area is calculated and the proportions of residents, non-resident workers, students and visitors is identified.
See the case study to find out how FSP’s Catchment Analysis report solved one client’s location problems.
Click here to download an example Catchment Map.
