Retail Market Power

The Retail Market Power™ (RMP) database provides an actionable portrait of sales opportunity for optimal site and market analysis,
so you can maximize your growth strategies by accurately targeting the sales gaps that exist in the marketplace. By using sales potential to depict supply and geography-based estimates of potential annual consumer expenditures to depict demand within a specific market, RMP enables an opportunity gap analysis of the retail environment. The database was developed using the Consumer Expenditure (CEX) surveys conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Census of Retail Trade conducted by the US Census. Current-year (CY) supply and demand estimates and five-year (5Y) demand projections are available for all standard census, postal, and marketing geographies.

Supply Side Estimates

The base for the supply side or potential sales estimates for Retail Market Power is the 1997 Census of Retail Trade (CRT), a component of the Economic Census fielded by the U.S. Census Bureau. The county level data from CRT is updated to 2005 by accounting for changes in business sales activity each year using wage & employment data from the BLS (the ES-202 file) and local sales tax data. The county level values are allocated to block groups based on employment counts from Business Facts. This results in block group level potential retail sales estimates by NAICS (North American Industrial Classification System). The NAICS categories are further break out by Merchandise Lines and adjusted to reflect current year totals of retail sales. Data Sources for Potential Sales:

Census of Retail Trade (CRT)
Annual Survey of Retail Trade
Claritas Business-Facts
Census of Employment & Wages
State Sales Tax reports
Trade Associations

Demand Side Estimates

The base for the demand side or potential expenditures estimates is the Consumer Expenditures Survey (CEX) from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Estimates are produced by developing regression models of household expenditures for a wide range of goods and services. These household level models are combined with Claritas current year demographic estimates to create geographic estimates of potential household demand for products and services. Using CRT information, those estimates are assigned to NAICS categories and used to estimate potential demand by NAICS code

In order to ensure that the potential demand estimates are aligned with expenditures at the macro level, control totals are introduced into the development process. These control totals are obtained thorough Global Insights, which is the premier source of information at the national level. Trade Associations data is also a part of the control process and it serves as a measure of expenditures in specific industries. Similar to the supply side, estimates are developed using the NAICS standard. Data Sources for Potential Expenditures:

Consumer Expenditure Survey (CEX)
Global Insights
Claritas Current Year demographics
Trade Associations

Opportunity Gap/Surplus

Retail Market Power allows you to compare supply and demand to determine potential sources of revenue growth at any standard or user defined geographic level. Such comparison can be achieved at the retail outlet level or the merchandise line level. An opportunity gap appears when household expenditures levels for a specific geography are higher than the corresponding retail sales estimates. This difference signifies that resident households are meeting the available supply and supplementing their additional demand potential by going outside of their own geography. The opposite is true in the event of an opportunity surplus. That is, when the levels of household expenditures are lower than the retail sales estimates. In this case, local retailers are attracting residents of other areas in to their stores.

Census & ZIP Code Boundary Maps

Claritas Data includes Census and ZIP Code Boundary files to use with MapInfo and ArcView for Thematic mapping.

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