Codata Explorer allows you to quickly draw up a development plan, without resorting to sophisticated and expensive techniques.

The principle is very simple

• Each retailer longs to set up in the immediate environment of some "reference retailers", whether they are competitors or not.
• Likewise, each retailer tries to avoid having in its environment"undesired retailers", whether they are competitors or not.

If we manage to

• identify the sites in which the "reference retailers" are present
• identify the sites from which the "undesired retailers" are absent

Then the bases of a development plan will be defined.

To achieve this goal, Codata Explorer offers a functionality named "Presence or Absence of Retailer(s)" that you will find in the Sites search engine.

Step by step, we are going to develop the reasoning and use of this functionality

To use the functionality, you need to choose the option "clusters" or the option "sites".

Let's select the option "sites" first

Fill in the field "Search for Sites in which all the following Retailers are present".

Suggestions of Retailers are displayed while typing.

Repeat the operation with other Retailers.

Fill in the field "Search for Sites from which at least one of the following Retailers is absent".

Suggestions of Retailers are displayed while typing.

Start your search.

You get a list of sites in which the searched retailers are present and from which the undesired retailers are absent.

To refine your search, scroll up to the top of the screen and, if necessary, open the search units you need.

Your search criteria have been saved.

You can refine your search by choosing further criteria in other units.

Start the sites search again.

Obviously, the number of sites you get has decreased as you have refined your search.

You can display the positioning of these sites in the cartographic interface.

Select one site and check that the retailers you are looking for are present.

You can also visualise the positioning of those locations in the cartographic interface.

To modify your search again, go back to the search engine using the appropriate button.

At any stage of the process, you can add criteria to narrow down your search results.

Obviously, those additional criteria allow you to decrease the number of provided sites.

By following those successive steps, you get the desired result: defining the bases of a development plan.

Let's now choose the option "clusters"

A commercial cluster is a set of locations situated on a father site and its son sites.
Example: The cluster "Lille Centre" includes the father site "Lille: Centre" as well as its son sites, that is to say the shopping centres "Euralille", "Le 31", "Le Passage des Tanneurs" and "Grand'Place".

We are going to compare the results of a search in terms of sites with those of a search in terms of clusters.

Choose and enter your criteria. First, start the search in terms of sites.

You get a list containing 28 sites.

Keep the same criteria and start the search in terms of clusters.

This time, you get a list containing 98 clusters.

By carrying out the search in terms of clusters, we notice that 9 commercial clusters are added to the list obtained after the search in terms of sites. Why?

Simply because the retailers selected in the field "Search for Sites in which a Retailer is present" have locations in different sites within the same clusters.

Then it is possible to expand or narrow down your search by modifying or adding selection criteria.

The functionality "Presence / Absence of Retailer(s)" of Codata Explorer enables you to define the bases of a development plan. Simply and quickly.