Why is Point of Interest Data Gold in Retail

In the fast-paced world of retail, staying ahead of the competition is key. Brands need to explore innovative strategies to drive success and boost sales continuously. One such strategy is utilizing the Point of Interest data (POI). Get ready to discover how POI data can give your retail business a competitive edge and propel your brand to new heights.

What is the Point of Point of Interest Data In Retail Business

But what does Point of Interest data even mean? ​​POI data refers to information about locations that might interest users, such as restaurants, hotels, tourist attractions, gas stations, and more. 

Therefore, POI data provides valuable consumer behaviour and preferences insights, helping retailers make data-driven decisions. By analyzing POI data, retailers can identify the most frequent locations, understand customer demographics, and tailor their marketing efforts accordingly. This enables them to deliver personalized customer experiences and create targeted campaigns that drive engagement and sales.

But how exactly does POI data work? In this article, we will explore how retailers can use POI data to enhance their decision-making process. We will also explore the use of location data, consumer insights, and competitor analysis to create impactful strategies that resonate with customers.

Why is Point of Interest Dataset Update Important

Points of Interest are the most common and desired dataset in location intelligence. As simple as it may look, its creation and maintenance cost a lot of effort because it is one of the most frequently changing datasets. Keeping it accurate and up to date sometimes seems like a bit of a Sisyphean task - you have just finished updating it, and it's about time to start again. But regardless of the dataset's complexity, the effort put into its maintenance is usually very much worth it. Why? Because this single dataset can describe a location like no other.

Discover How POI Data is Used in Retail Business

Let’s explore three Point of Interest examples of how POI data can be used in location intelligence and why they are an absolute must-have when starting your project!

1. Knowing where your competitors are

We admit it; the first reason on our list is quite obvious. However, knowing the locations of your competitors is essential when planning your retail branch. Ideally, you would like to be the only choice in the neighbourhood, and you also want to avoid cannibalizing your branches. Searching for a location with a sufficient distance from your nearest competitor can be a long task without up-to-date points of interest. With them, however, it’s a single click in the CleverMaps Studio. Count of competitors within 5 minutes walking distance? 10 minutes? 10 minutes by car? Or 500 m surroundings. All that is just a few clicks away. No other tool on the market can draw catchment areas and its content as fast as our Studio does.

2. Measuring the overall attractiveness of a location

Although there are other parameters that determine the attractiveness of a location like human mobility or purchasing power, points of interest are definitely in the mix as well. That’s why we put our heads together and devised a methodology to locate the busiest places in the city. We called it the Exposure Index. Its basic thought is simple - businesses attract people. And the bigger the businesses or their concentration is, the more people are attracted to it. Of course, not all types of businesses attract people the same way, so each point gets its weight based on its size and importance. Bus stops, for example, are evaluated based on the number of connections, retail stores on their size, and the same counts for parcel lockers. If you summarize the values of the point's attractiveness around your specified location, you will quickly know about the area's potential. It’s that simple. And, when visualized with a heatmap, sometimes you don’t even need to click. Simply looking at a map will tell you straight away whether your current location has potential for improvement.

City of Olomouc and its Exposure Index. The attractiveness of the city parts is clear straight away.

3. Getting to know the neighborhood

This may sound a little weird at first, but knowing what’s around really can help you find a perfect spot for your new business. How? Let’s imagine a situation where you would like to open a fancy new candy store. Belgian chocolate, exclusive ice cream, or delicious cheesecakes. Who wouldn’t come to check it out? Many people can be attracted to your shop just by passing around and smelling it. That has one condition though - the shop needs to be located somewhere people are strolling around during the time suitable for coffee or ice cream. Our thoughts would be to try to locate it somewhere with a lot of other stores open during the day, possibly close to some sort of cultural landmark. And of course, a school in close proximity can never be a bad thing for the performance of any ice cream store. We would also search for a “modern and popular” location. How do we find one of those? Well, for example, with the help of the Data Appeal points of interest, which include the busyness score and popularity of the surrounding stores. The more people like to visit stores around your selected location, the more likely they are to visit your store as well. Locating neighborhoods with a high share of popular stores is a piece of cake with the right filters in the CleverMaps Studio.

Quickly visualize the AVG sentiment of POIs and find the popular neighborhoods in the city.

POI Data in Retail Business is a Secret Weapon

We often say that describing a location requires a lot of information. When asked to evaluate a location, we can actually provide hundreds of parameters for each. But even with using only the Points of Interest dataset, you can achieve some great results thanks to its versatility. It allows you not only to see the closest surroundings of a location but also the city from a more complex point of view. No other dataset is this useful when comparing the value to the potential. It’s an ideal starting point for using a location intelligence tool.

Curious to learn more about POI?

Read our next article How to Get the Most Out of Point of Interest Data for Location Analysis.