Intalytics helps supermarket chain develop national U.S. expansion plan

A supermarket chain was interested in expanding into new markets in the U.S., and wanted to develop an expansion plan that would provide profitable new store deployment opportunities. The chain had historically employed a gravity model approach to forecast sales for new potential stores, but found that the analyses required to identify successful deployment opportunities were both expensive and time-consuming. Further, the chain had a distinct appeal to a subset of households, which could not be effectively accounted for by using a gravity model.

• What types of households are most likely to patronize my stores?
• What is the impact of competition on store sales performance?
• How can we decide which new sites to consider?

Intalytics collected relevant data for the client supermarket chain, including store locations, store size and amenities, store sales, customer addresses, site characteristics, demographic/psychographic information, and competitive locations. Intalytics then conducted a statistical analysis to determine the impact of each independent variable on store sales performance. The results of this analysis were used to build a sales forecasting model, which was back tested by forecasting sales for all existing stores. Intalytics then conducted a national supportable store analysis. More than 80,000 “seed points”, or potential store deployment opportunities, were identified across the U.S. Intalytics then defined a trade area and generated a sales forecast for each seed point. Intalytics further estimated the cannibalization, or sales transfer, impact that each seed point would have on existing stores.