THE END OF THE "GUT FEELING" INVESTMENT STRATEGY
How Cushman & Wakefield’s research and advice make all the difference
The end of the “gut feeling” investment strategy – The retail industry is evolving at lightning speed. To keep up the pace for your investments, expansions or possible reorganizations, you’ll undoubtedly have felt the need to make decisions based on facts and figures. Following your gut might have worked in the past, but in the current market it’s not an ideal investment strategy.
Enter Cushman & Wakefield, the leader in Belgian retail real estate for decades. Our position in the market provides you with countless evidence-based insights and precious data on market evolutions and trends. Our experienced research team tirelessly combines this data with the most up-to-date facts on population, buying power per industry, numbers of transients, the locations of your competitors and many other variables.
TAILORED ADVICE TO FIT YOUR BUSINESS LIKE A CHARM
Our quarterly general market reports offer valuable insights. However, if you’re an investor or retailer with concrete plans, you might need data and input tailored to your specific project. There are so many questions to be answered:
- What’s the market potential of your preferred location?
- What’s the catchment area and what are the spending figures for a certain product category?
- Is buying power higher or lower than the national average – and by how much exactly?
- Can the potential of a not-yet existing retail park or shopping centre be calculated or estimated?
- Should you focus solely on Belgium or would your plans best thrive internationally?
So many questions, so many clear answers we’ll provide you. Wondering how exactly we do that?
HERE’S HOW OUR MARKET RESEARCH AND ADVICE HELP YOU GROW
We base our catchments on a pan-European information system, with extensive detailed data on population structure, buying power per category and socio-demographic data. In Belgium, we even have that data at neighbourhood level, which enables us to identify highly detailed catchment areas. But this international system can also provide you with all the same data for any European location of your choosing.
Drivetime Catchments are the starting point, calculating and documenting the perimeter around a 10-, 15- and 20-minute driving time area, including Excel spreadsheets that contain all the relevant data, precisely measured for the desired location.
OUR GRAVITY MODEL: THE IMPORTANCE OF ATTRACTION
For heavily competitive areas, we can refine all this data using our Gravity model.
Needless to say, all catchments are double-checked using other sources such as surveys and calculations through payment transactions, among other things. The Gravity model contains all retail locations and their specific parameters, and is updated frequently to take into account new openings and trends that can change attraction.
PREDICTION MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCE
This model can also be used to make highly accurate predictions. This forecasting can answer questions like:
- What would be the impact of a new shopping mall on its environment?
- What’s the customer potential for a new retail park?
Using the Gravity model, we can simulate these scenarios and even assess the potential impact and loss for surrounding locations.
LOCAL OR GLOBAL, IT’S YOUR CHOICE
Cushman & Wakefield can deliver this data for Belgium and any other European location, in the exact same format and with precisely the same content. If you’re considering an international expansion, that’s quite the effective way to support it. It’s a tailored tool that lines up all relevant data beautifully.
Apart from population structure and buying power, we offer other fundamentally important data too:
- The number of transients (or in the countryside: the number of passing vehicles)
- Employees in the vicinity
- Local rent and its evolution
- Potential tourist flows
- The mobility situation
- The number of direct competitors nearby
- …
INJECT YOUR OWN EXPERTISE FOR A WINNING FORMULA: CONTACT US!
We can combine all these elements for you, and provide you with a clear spreadsheet with a specific weighting for each element – the so-called Weighted Matrix. Of course, you know best which environment is ideal for you: you can add to the sheets yourself and adapt them based on your specific market experience and knowledge – without having to share that experience with others.
Curious to see how this tailored tool can help your plans flourish?
Contact or dynamic Cushman & Wakefield Retail team today!
Read more :
