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New store location analysis
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United States
New store location and network planning for US chains
For retail and restaurant chains deciding where the next store goes and how the network should look. Compare candidate sites, overlap and foot traffic.
Get a free analysis of your locations
Up to 5 locations. No cost, no commitment.
We handle your details in line with the CCPA and applicable US state privacy laws.
Choosing a new store location is a network decision, not a single-site one. This page is for chains planning where to open and how their store network should be shaped, not for shoppers looking for a brand's newest store. Huq shows weekly foot traffic at candidate sites, drive times, nearby brand locations, how much each catchment overlaps your existing stores and the risk that a new opening takes visits from them.
See how new store location planning works in Huq
This short video walks through the Huq platform, from drawing areas on the Explore map to managing locations in Projects. For a new store location decision, look for how candidate sites sit beside your existing stores, how catchment and travel time appear for each, and how a shortlist can be tracked and exported for your real estate committee.
- Travel time and catchment: see how far each candidate site draws visitors and where it overlaps your existing stores.
- Brand locations and POIs: check which competitors and neighboring brands surround each shortlisted site.
- Projects: track every candidate from not started to closed, with exports and PDF reports for the committee.
Trusted by 300+ organisations · Data across 35 markets
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What is new store location planning?
New store location planning is how a multi-site retailer or restaurant chain decides where its next store should go. Good planning looks at the candidate site and at the network around it: the demand the site can draw, the competitors nearby and the stores of your own it might take visits from.
Store network planning takes the same view across the whole network. It asks which markets have room for more stores, which stores overlap too much, and which locations should be relocated, refurbished or closed.
Both depend on the same evidence: how many people visit a location, how long they stay and where they come from. Huq measures this at any US address, including sites you don't operate yet. More than 1,000 locations are manually validated in each of Huq's 35 markets twice a year. Keep each shortlist in a Project and compare candidates with your best stores before you sign.
What's in your new store location analysis
01
Foot traffic at candidate sites
Weekly visits for each shortlisted address, compared side by side with your top-performing stores.
02
Catchment and drive time
Where visitors to each candidate site come from and how far they travel, showing the demand it can draw.
03
Overlap with your stores
Cross-visitation for up to 10 location pairs shows shared and unique visitors between candidates and your existing stores.
04
Benchmarking across the network
Compare foot traffic, dwell time and visit frequency across your stores and competitors to spot over- and under-served markets.
What a new store location analysis shows
A sample comparing shortlisted sites with an existing store. Your free analysis uses your own shortlist and your own stores.
01
Candidate sites vs your top performer
Weekly visits at two or three shortlisted sites, set against one of your strongest stores. The gap shows how close each candidate comes to a proven location.
02
Catchment overlap with nearby stores
Shared and unique visitors between each candidate and your nearest stores. High overlap points to cannibalization risk; low overlap points to new customers.
03
Visit frequency and dwell time by site
How often people return and how long they stay at each candidate, to separate destination locations from places people only pass through.
Store network planning across the US
Huq covers any address in the United States: shopping centers, main streets, downtowns, strip malls, competitors' stores and sites you haven't opened yet. No counters, sensors or cameras needed.
Huq manually validates more than 1,000 locations in each of its 35 markets twice a year, and data refreshes weekly.
How it works
Step 1
Tell us your locations
Add up to five addresses in the form. Your own stores, candidate sites or competitors.
Step 2
We run the analysis
Our team maps each location from observed visitor data.
Step 3
We walk you through it
A short call to take you through what the data shows and what it means for you.
Why chains use Huq for new store location decisions
- Huq publishes its accuracy by country: a 19.5% median error across published markets, against a 30% healthy threshold.
- Huq's customers give it an NPS of 42.
- Trusted by 300+ organizations across 35 markets, including the global insights, research and location intelligence teams at Nike, Adidas, JD Sports and Samsung.
huq's platform gave us valuable data to support a key decision on potential new sites.
Dan Brogden
National Sales Manager, Puccinos
Who it's for
01
Retail chains of any size
From five-store retailers planning their next site to national brands: choose locations, track store performance and benchmark against competitors.
02
Retail real estate owners
Show shopping center performance, support leasing and get the tenant mix right, for landlords, asset managers and brokers.
03
Investors and private equity
Check how retail brands and assets actually perform before you buy, and monitor them after.
Everything Huq measures, in one platform
- Foot traffic: by week, month and year, with totals, average daily foot traffic, trends, period-over-period change, and visiting vs passing traffic.
- Residents and visitors.
- Trade area and travel time: trade areas by ZIP code, plus drive-time and travel-time analysis.
- Demographics and profiling: age, gender and purchasing power, available in selected markets.
- Behavior: visit frequency, dwell time, time of day and dayparts, cross-visitation between up to 10 location pairs, and international visitation for tourism.
- Foot traffic density and transportation mode.
- Places, brands and industries: points of interest, brand locations and brand analysis, industry performance, shopping center and retail center types.
- Geo-spend: spend by volume and category, available in selected markets.
- Tools: the Explore map (draw any area or use layers for travel time, trade areas, shopping centers, retail centers, brand locations, industries and ZIP codes), White Space Analysis, and Projects for monitoring many locations and reporting to stakeholders.
- Delivery: the platform, CSV or Excel exports, monthly PDF location reports, and data feeds as Parquet and CSV files into Amazon S3 or Google Cloud Storage buckets.
- Cadence: data refreshes weekly.
Frequently asked questions
How do you choose a new store location?
Start with the network, then the site. Find markets with demand your stores don't already serve, shortlist candidate sites, then compare each on foot traffic, where visitors come from, competitor presence and overlap with your existing stores. Benchmark the shortlist against your best performers before you negotiate.
How will a new store affect my existing stores?
It depends on how many visitors the new store shares with your nearby locations. Huq's cross-visitation shows shared and unique visitors for up to 10 location pairs at once, so you can see cannibalization risk before you open and track visit shifts afterward.
Who does site selection for retailers?
Usually an in-house real estate or network planning team, often working with brokers, consultants and data providers. The team shortlists sites and a real estate committee approves them. Huq gives that team weekly foot traffic, catchment and drive time, brand locations and competitor benchmarks, tracked in Projects. It's evidence for decisions rather than a sales forecasting model.
What do I get in the free new store location analysis?
Send us two or three candidate sites and one of your top-performing stores. We compare them on weekly foot traffic, where visitors come from and overlap with your nearby stores, and send you a short report you can share with your real estate committee.
How often is the data updated?
Weekly. Every week adds to the trend, so you see trends and seasonality at a candidate site rather than a single snapshot. You can keep monitoring your whole network, including the new store, after it opens.
Can Huq analyze any US address?
Yes. Huq measures foot traffic across the US and in 35 markets worldwide without sensors, cameras or hardware, and manually validates more than 1,000 locations in each market twice a year. You can analyze sites you don't operate yet, competitor stores and vacant units, not only your own locations.
Questions? Talk to us
Book a demoAbout Huq
Huq is a location intelligence company. We turn anonymised mobile location data into footfall, catchment and visitor insight for any place, so retailers, property owners and local authorities can make decisions on evidence.
See how your locations really perform
Up to 5 locations. No cost, no commitment.