2007 Economic Census

Locate Business Markets

• A large retailing chain obtains information on the ZIP Codes of its customers from its credit card transactions. It then links that information with demographic census and economic data to analyze how far its customers are willing to come to shop at their stores and how that distance varies with the number of competing stores. It can then locate new clusters of ZIP Codes with favorable demographic and economic characteristics in which to locate new stores.
• A major food store chain uses economic census data and population figures to estimate potential weekly food store sales in the geographic areas for each of its stores. These estimates allow the company to calculate market share for each existing store and to evaluate prospective sites for new stores.
• The owner of a chain of auto accessory stores computes the ratio of accessory sales in the economic census to household income from the population census for several neighboring metropolitan areas. Finding his own area well above national averages, he infers that the local market for auto accessory stores might be already saturated. That contributes to his decision to expand into a nearby Metropolitan Area with a lower ratio instead of adding another store locally.