The two most important factors affecting the success of any retail business are customers and location, so much so you can’t have one without the other; they are inseparable. However, unlike the age-old question ‘which came first, the chicken or the egg,’ we know that finding customers comes before finding the right location. While it’s true that “location, location, location” is absolutely critical to the success of any retail business, you must first define your target customer profile.
When identifying your target customer, think of them in demographic (census) terms. What age group does your product or service appeal to? Are there children in the household? Are they homeowners or renters? Do they drive? What is their income range (can they afford your product or service)? What are their hobbies and interests? Once you have your target customer profile in hand, it’s time to locate them – where they live, where they work, where they shop, where they play.
Our spotlight franchise, CherryBerry Self-Serve Frozen Yogurt Bar, headquartered in Broken Arrow, OK, is rapidly expanding. The majority of stores are located in the mid-west, with locations reaching as far as Colorado, North Dakota, North Carolina, Florida, and Texas; and many new locations are opening soon. The CherryBerry business model is simple in design and highly popular. Customers grab a dish, fill it with any of 50+ rotating flavors of frozen yogurt, add as many toppings as they choose, place it on the scale and pay a flat per ounce fee – easy, quick, delicious, and a healthy choice too!
CherryBerry offers franchise opportunities and uses the power of GeoMetrx to optimize territories and provide detailed data for site selection analysis and more. Each CherryBerry franchise territory is unique and careful site selection within those territories can make the difference in the level of success of each store. Following is a site selection comparison for two CherryBerry locations – one in Enid, OK and one in Glenpool, OK. As you can see from the maps below, the Enid store is located in a more densely populated area than the Glenpool store, yet both stores are flourishing.
