US Retail Centers

We've divided the entire retail landscape of the United States into approximately 200,000 1 kilometer x 1 kilometer grid cells or "bricks." A brick is roughly a one kilometer square area containing some level of retail activity ranging from "limited" (fewer than 10 retailers) to the "dense" (areas containing major shopping centers and/or hundreds of retailers). Our current ShopPoint™ database contains approximately 200,000 of these bricks.

Let's look at the facts about centers and retail areas. The current commercial databases listing centers and malls have between 5,000 and 50,000 entries. These data typically represent all of the larger shopping centers in the United States and many mid-sized centers. If you are looking for major retailers in the US, quite a few can be found in these centers; however, there are some "catches" here --- and they are big ones.

1. Many retailers today (major and minor) are not located in shopping centers of any scale but rather appear as freestanding businesses in retail "strips," retail clusters, or small strip centers.

2. Many smaller centers, especially those with 5-10 stores, don't appear in any database. Our center database has some of these centers but is missing others because they don't show up as "shopping centers" in any formal way.

How important are these smaller centers and retail clusters? If you are The Gap, Sears or Nieman Marcus, perhaps not very important. However, roughly 80% of all retail activity takes place in these grid cells and micro-areas outside of the traditional centers and malls. Hundreds of major retailers such as chain restaurants, convenience stores, pharmacies, and many others are likely to be found here. Also, in today's competitive retail environment, with limited development of new centers, many traditional center-based retailers are opening stores here.

Our research on all shopping areas in the United States shows that retail activity takes place in:

• 5,000 "large" malls and shopping centers (with 225,000+ square feet)
• 20,000 "medium" centers ranging from 100,000 to 225,000 square feet). Many of these are "big-box" centers or grocery centers
• 35,000 "neighborhood" centers or local centers with 40,000 to 100,000 square feet or 20+ retailers
• 200,000 "small centers" with 9-19 stores
• 500,000 "strip centers" with 3-8 stores

All of these centers are spread throughout the 200,000 grid cells us to define the retail geography of the United States. The grid cells help to identify sections of any market where patterns of retail activity or the associated trade areas will be of interest to certain retailers, brokers or developers.

"Shopping Centers" and "Retail Centers" have the same meaning in our database for most centers --- both refer to a traditional shopping center. But there are some important differences in some cases:

• "Shopping Centers" tend to be larger centers that often have a center name. This is because the center has a presence on the Internet that can identified by name using our search technology.
• "Retail Centers" often are smaller centers (but not always) that are identified through the retailers in the center. Many of our retail centers are currently lacking a center name.
• Our Retail Center data also includes individual retailers clustered around the center on the pad or in an adjacent free-standing building. Because these retailers behave as if they were part of the center, they are included in the center data.

To provide the most comprehensive coverage, our Large and Small ShopPoint™ Shopping Center Databases are a combination of traditional Shopping Centers and Retail Centers.

Our ShopPoint™ Retailer Data Consists of:

• 600,000 Locations for the Top 3,500 Chain Retailers
• 4,000,000 Locations for Local Retailers