GapMaps expands into the US & Canada, assisting QSRs, Cafes, Fast Food & Fitness Brands in Location Selection

Impact Analysis, a new GapMaps feature, helps businesses understand the sales impact on existing stores when considering new locations

August 8, 2023: Continuing its global expansion cloud-based mapping software specialists, GapMaps, has launched in the US and Canada, driven by customer demand to access its location intelligence platform in these two markets.  

GapMaps Live provides more than 500 brands, such as McDonalds, KFC, Starbucks and Burger King, with a comprehensive view of their networks and unprecedented insights to inform their global store location strategies across 25 countries.

 “Global brands in fast food, café and fitness sectors can now use a single platform to access accurate population, demographics and competitor intel along with location insights for their own stores in these regions,” said Anthony Villanti, GapMaps’ Managing Director and Founder.

“These brands no longer need to rely on external consultants to inform their market planning strategies, we’ve made it easy by sourcing accurate and trusted datasets accessible in one simple to use platform with access to their proprietary information in-house.

“Brands in these sectors using GapMaps Live in Australia, New Zealand, India, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia can use our platform to inform optimal locations for expanding their store networks in the US and Canada.

“Similarly, large multi-national brands based in the US and Canada contemplating expansion into our other international markets gain real-time visibility of their company owned and franchise networks globally through a single GIS platform, helping manage location decisions across all countries,” added Villanti.

 The GapMaps Live platform offers real-time intelligence and insights used to inform location decisions through a comprehensive range of accurate and trusted data sets across all regions, including population, demographic, economic, customer, and competitor location information. 

 These insights are particularly important for US and Canadian brands looking to venture into new growth markets across Asia by enabling a rapid assessment of the attractiveness of catchment areas, considering factors such as population size, affordability of the consuming class and the competitor landscape. Brands can analyze different local demographic and industry data at a very granular level, often drilling down to a 150 meter grid to pinpoint an optimum store catchment.

Additionally, for a more comprehensive analysis, clients can easily integrate their own data, such as sales, performance, and customer locations.

“Since 2018, we’ve strategically expanded our global presence aligned to our customer’s plans and this move into the US and Canada is a significant growth opportunity for GapMaps to capture a larger share of the location intelligence market.

"The popularity of GapMaps is attributed to its ease of use and unique feature of a single login for all users within an organization to make store location decisions globally. This ensures seamless access for everyone involved in network strategy planning to efficiently visualize and manage their locations worldwide.

 “By giving brands access to detailed insights on population size, competitor locations and other granular demographic and point of interest data down to a local level, they can quickly evaluate and prioritize store expansion opportunities, even in countries with limited data availability. With this valuable information and unparalleled flexibility, brands can make informed decisions to secure ideal operational locations," added Villanti.

Furthermore, a new feature launching soon called Impact Analysis, enables any user to use mobile visitation data to understand the customer “where from” and “where to” travel patterns and assess the cannibalization impact from opening a new store nearby based on convenience and the travel patterns of existing customers.

“Impact Analysis will be a real game changer in the US and Canada markets as brands with large store networks can quickly estimate the sales impact based on real customer trips from opening a new bricks and mortar store or easily run scenarios across existing stores and possible new locations, to determine the optimal network,” continued Villanti. 

 "For decades, Impact Analysis has remained an essential process in determining the viability of business and franchise expansion. However, it has historically been a laborious, time-consuming, and costly undertaking due to its primarily manual nature. Nevertheless, the significance of this process cannot be understated, as it lays the foundation for informed decision-making. And in many cases it can be the location decisions we choose not to make that is the best financial decision.

 “By introducing Impact Analysis into GapMaps Live, teams can now complete due diligence on new sites much faster by determining the total percentage impact on sales across their existing stores with a high degree of accuracy.

 “Network planning teams can submit their recommendations in a fraction of the time, and by visualizing all the key data in GapMaps Live, they can conduct real-time analysis on other locations to determine alternative options, all within the one platform,” adds Villanti.

 About GapMaps

Founded in 2013, GapMaps is an Australian-built and owned company with global capabilities, empowering decision makers in multiple industry sectors refine their network strategies with location intelligence and demographics. Its dynamic products can be easily adapted for any market or industry and today is being effectively used by more than 500 brands in Australia, New Zealand, Asia, the Middle East and North Africa to make location intelligence data easily obtainable for more accurate business decision-making.