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Trade area analysis
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United States
Trade area analysis based on where visitors come from
See the trade area each store actually draws from, not a radius ring. Map primary and secondary zones for any US address with a free analysis.
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Trade area analysis should start from where a store's visitors actually come from. Huq maps that for any US address, including competitor stores, so you can see a location's real trade area instead of a 3-mile ring. Split it into zones by ZIP code, compare it with drive time, see residents vs visitors, and check where trade areas overlap. More than 1,000 locations are manually validated in each of Huq's 35 markets twice a year.
See how trade area analysis works in the Huq platform
This overview tours the Huq platform. For trade area analysis, watch the Explore map: pick a store, then switch on the travel time and catchment layers to see its reach, or draw your own area with polygon and radius tools. You'll also see how ZIP code layers and brand locations help you read what sits inside a trade area.
- Catchment: visit share by ZIP code, so you can rank the areas a store depends on.
- Drive-time analysis: how far visitors travel, set against the store's observed trade area.
- Residents vs visitors: who lives in the trade area and who travels into it.
Trusted by 300+ organisations · Data across 35 markets
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What is trade area analysis?
A trade area is the geographic zone a store draws most of its customers from. Trade area analysis defines that zone and measures what's inside it. Analysts usually split it into a primary trade area, closest to the store and supplying the largest share of visitors, a secondary trade area further out, and sometimes a tertiary fringe.
Trade areas have traditionally been drawn as a radius ring, or as a drive-time zone showing how far people can travel in, say, 10 or 15 minutes. Gravity models such as the Huff model estimate how customers split between competing stores. All three model where customers should come from.
Observed visitor origin shows where they do come from. A highway, a river or a stronger competitor can make a real trade area look very different from a neat circle. Huq shows the observed trade area by ZIP code alongside drive-time analysis, residents vs visitors and nearby brand locations.
What's in your trade area analysis
01
Observed trade area map
Where each store's visitors actually come from, mapped for your stores, candidate sites and competitor locations.
02
Zones by ZIP code
Your trade area split into primary and secondary zones by share of visits from each ZIP code.
03
Trade area overlap
Cross-visitation across up to 10 location pairs, showing where trade areas overlap between your stores or with competitors.
04
Drive-time analysis
How far visitors travel to reach the store, compared with its observed trade area.
What a trade area analysis shows
The free trade area map covers one location. Here's what's in it.
01
Observed trade area vs a 3-mile ring
Visitor origin laid over a standard 3-mile ring. The gap between them shows where a radius overstates or understates the store's real reach.
02
Primary and secondary trade areas
Zones ranked by share of visitors. The primary trade area is where local marketing and competition matter most; the secondary shows how far the store's pull extends.
03
Overlap with nearby stores
Shared and unique visitors between this location and nearby stores. Heavy overlap with a sister store points to cannibalization; overlap with a competitor shows who you're competing with.
Trade area analysis for any US location
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 teams use Huq for trade area analysis
- 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
What is trade area analysis?
It's the process of defining the area a store draws most of its customers from and measuring what's inside it. Analysts split it into primary, secondary and sometimes tertiary zones. Huq builds the trade area from where visitors actually come from, by ZIP code, and lets you compare it with drive time and residents vs visitors.
What are primary, secondary and tertiary trade areas?
The primary trade area is closest to the store and supplies the largest share of visitors. The secondary trade area sits further out and contributes a smaller share. The tertiary trade area is the fringe of occasional visitors. Huq splits a store's observed trade area into these zones by share of visitors.
How do you conduct a trade area analysis?
Pick the location, then define its trade area. A radius is quick but ignores roads, barriers and competition. Drive-time zones follow the road network but are still estimates. Observed visitor data shows where customers actually come from. Huq offers both observed catchments and drive-time analysis, so you can compare them, then check overlap with your other sites.
How often should you do a trade area analysis?
More often than most teams do. New competitors, road changes, new housing and seasonal patterns all shift where customers come from, so a one-off study dates quickly. Huq data updates weekly, so you can track a store's trade area over time and recheck it before a lease renewal, remodel or nearby opening.
What's in the free trade area analysis?
We'll map the trade area for one of your US locations: where its visitors actually come from compared with a 3-mile ring, its primary and secondary zones, and how much it overlaps with nearby stores. There's no commitment and no hardware to install.
Can Huq map trade areas for competitor stores across the US?
Yes. Huq works on any address across the US, including competitor stores and sites you're considering. Pick a competitor from the brand locations layer on the Explore map. No sensors, cameras or site access are needed, so you can compare your trade areas with a competitor's on the same basis.
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.
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