In this week’s SimplyMap report, we explore one of the newer datasets available: Retail Market Power®.

What is it? In short, the Retail Market Power® dataset helps users identify opportunities within the industry they are targeting. These gaps are identified by analyzing expenditures and retail sales. Marketers can focus on targeting areas where the expenditures far exceed the total sales.

Let’s take a look at an example.

Scenario: You are thinking of opening up a jewelry store in your ZIP code, but first you want to determine if there is a need for one, and discover if people in the area readily buy jewelery.

Solution: First, open a Standard Report and use your ZIP code as the location. Next, navigate through the Retail market Power category in the Variables menu to find jewelry store expenditures and sales in your location. After selecting the correct variables, close out the Variables menu to generate your report.

The report is shown below:

According to the above results, there is a fairly large gap in the jewelry store industry in the 44146 ZIP code where expenditures are greatly exceeding sales. Many residents must be spending their money at jewelry stores outside of the ZIP code, creating an opportunity for more jewelry stores to site locally.

The above scenario is a brief look at this dataset. Explore the other 17 category folders and let us know some interesting figures you come across!

Lastly, don’t forget to enter into our Winter Sweepstakes where we’ll be giving away an iPad and Kindle Fire! Details here: Winter Sweepstakes!