Location and catchment analysis for local businesses
A catchment analysis estimates where a clinic’s, café’s or shop’s customers come from and what share of them it can expect against the competitors nearby. We combine open map data with the Huff model to show your likely share by neighbourhood, where a new branch would add the most customers, and the areas worth naming in your Google Business Profile and local pages.
Case study: Cafés in Prague 2: where homes outnumber cafés
What you receive
- A catchment map of your area: estimated demand and your chance of being chosen, street block by street block.
- Your estimated share of local demand, next to the share of each competitor within reach.
- Reach: the part of demand within a 10-minute drive, walk or ride (your choice) from your door.
- New branch candidates: the locations that would add the most customers you do not already reach.
- Service areas for local SEO: the neighbourhoods where you are strongest, in Arabic and English, ready for your Google Business Profile and your website’s markup.
- Local questions to track in AI assistants (“dentist near Al Barsha”, “عيادة أسنان في البرشاء”), so you see whether they name you for your own area.
- The data as a map file (GeoJSON) and spreadsheets (CSV).
How does the analysis work?
The Huff model, introduced by David Huff in 1963, estimates the probability that a customer at a given place chooses a given store: it grows with the store’s attractiveness and falls with travel time. We apply it to a grid over your area:
- Demand: homes from OpenStreetMap, weighted by building type, or your own customer locations if you share them (much better).
- Supply: your branches and every competitor of the same type mapped nearby.
- Travel time: estimated by car, on foot or by bike.
- Choice: the Huff probabilities for every block, summed into shares.
- New sites: candidate locations tested one by one for the customers they add; coverage goals follow the maximal covering location model of Church and ReVelle (1974).
Which cities does it work for?
Any city with good OpenStreetMap coverage, including the UAE (Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah), Germany, the Czech Republic, Tunisia, France and the UK. Reports are available in Arabic, English and French. Coverage differs from city to city, so every report lists the competitors it found for you to check.
Which decisions does it help with?
| Question | What the report shows |
|---|---|
| Where should we open the next branch? | Candidate spots ranked by the new customers they add, not by the customers they take from your own branch. |
| Which areas should our Google Business Profile and local pages name? | The neighbourhoods where your estimated share is highest, in both languages. |
| Why do we get few customers from a nearby district? | Whether a competitor is closer for most homes there, or whether travel time is the barrier. |
| Is this rent worth it? | The estimated demand within reach of the address, compared with your current location. |
What are the limits?
- The shares are estimates for comparing options, not sales forecasts. Real customer postcodes make them much more accurate.
- Housing is a proxy for demand: areas with many offices, malls or tourists need your own data.
- Travel times are estimates from distance and typical speeds, good for comparing places rather than exact minutes.
- We use open, aggregated data only: no personal or device location data. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Free catchment check: Free catchment check: how many competitors are within walking distance?
Questions and answers
What does a location analysis cost?
The price depends on the size of the area and the number of branches. Send us your details and we reply with a quote.
What do you need from me?
Your business type, your address or the area you are considering, your current branches if any and, ideally, anonymised customer postcodes.
Can you use our own customer data?
Yes, and it makes the result much more accurate. Anonymised postcodes or areas are enough; we never need names or contact details.