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ShopPoint™ Database FAQ

What Is The USRC ShopPoint™ + Directory of Major Malls Database?
How is The Directory of Major Malls integrated into ShopPoint™?
How Is The ShopPoint™ Database Designed?
“Shopping Centers” & “Retail Centers” – what’s the difference?
What Types of Centers are included in ShopPoint™?
What Data Attributes are deliverable with ShopPoint™ Centers and Major Retailers?
What Retailers are included in the ShopPoint™ Major Retailer Database?

What is the USRC ShopPoint™ + Directory of Major Malls Database?

Our ShopPoint™ database of Shopping Centers and Retail Centers offers the first comprehensive look at the entire retail landscape of the United States. The ShopPoint™ Center information is used in combination with our ShopPoint™ Retail Grid System and our ShopPoint™ Retailer Database to allow our users to define and evaluate retail districts of any size or shape.

USRetailCenters.com offers a number of databases for license that offer information on United States retailers, shopping centers and business centers of many types and ranging in size from the largest Regional Malls to Micro-Centers with as few as two businesses. All of these data are part of the integrated ShopPoint™ Database displayed online at the USRetailCenters.com site.

How is The Directory of Major Malls integrated into ShopPoint™?

ShopPoint™ now includes the centers and center details from The Directory of Major Malls (DMM)
Users can order individual reports for Directory of Major Malls centers
Members can also add the option of "turning on" Directory of Major Malls Center Reports for all Directory of Major Malls centers.

How Is The ShopPoint™ Database Designed?

We've divided the entire retail landscape of the United States into approximately 835,000 1 kilometer x 1 kilometer grid cells or "retail districts." A single cell is roughly a one kilometer square area containing some level of retail activity ranging from "limited" (fewer than 10 retailers) to "dense" (districts containing major shopping centers and/or hundreds of retailers).

Our current ShopPoint™ database contains approximately 835,000 of these districts.
Each grid cell has an assigned set of measures which are used for exploring markets visually. Cells are thematically shaded by retail activity, consumer preferences, sales activity… more than 800 different measures!

Unique feature: in most cases, rather than looking at customer information in the grid cell itself, the shading reflects what is happening in the retail TRADE AREA for that grid cell. So a red or purple cell for "Best Buy" indicates that the trade area around this location HAS MANY BEST BUY CUSTOMERS.

Shopping Centers & Retail Centers – what’s the difference?

Let's look at the facts about centers and retail districts. 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.

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 / micro centers.
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-districts 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 districts in the United States shows that retail activity takes place in:

8,000 "large" malls and shopping centers (with 250,000+ square feet)
14,000 "medium" centers ranging from 100,000 to 250,000 square feet). Many of these are "big-box" centers or grocery centers
44,000 "neighborhood" centers or local centers with 50,000 to 100,000 square feet or 20+ retailers
65,000 "small centers" with 5-19 stores
531,000 "micro centers" with 1-4 stores

All of these centers are spread throughout the 835,000 grid cells used 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 ShopPoint™ Shopping Center Databases are a combination of traditional Shopping Centers and Retail Centers.

What Types of Centers are included in ShopPoint™?

List of Included Center Types:

Super Regional
Regional
Community Shopping
Power
Big-Box
Neighborhood Retail/Service
Neighborhood Grocery
Lifestyle/Specialty
Outlet
Fashion
Entertainment
Discount
Restaurant Row
Small Retail/Service
Convenience

What Data Attributes are deliverable for ShopPoint™ Centers and Major Retailers?

ShopPoint™ Centers Attributes Include:

Center Name (available for some large centers)
Center ID
Address
Latitude/Longitude
Center Type
Size
Date of Opening
Retailers / Center Tenants

Major Retailers Attributes Include:

Major Retailer Name
Retailer ID
Address
Latitude/Longitude
Retail Category
Retail Center

What Retailers are included in the ShopPoint™ Major Retailer Database?

Our ShopPoint™ Major Retailer database contains 853,000 Locations for the Top 9,800 Chain Retailers, plus 4,884,000 locations for small, local retailers. New retailer store chains are added to these data monthly as we are able to compile the locations for missing retailers. If you need specific retailers not listed please contact us and we will provide an estimate of when these data can be available.

Retail Category Groups

Amusement/Entertainment/Toys
Apparel
Auto
Beauty/Fitness/Health
Books/Stationary/Media
Department/Discount/Closeout/Variety/Outlet
Electronics/Wireless
Gifts/Specialty/Education
Home/Appliances/Housewares/Home décor
Pets/Animal Supplies
Photo/Camera/Pictures
Restaurants/Fast Food/Dining
Sport/Outdoor
Supercenters/Warehouse/Wholesale
Supermarkets/Convenience/Drug/Liquor