Franchise location selection may be one of the most important steps of opening a franchise. Our guide shows you how to pick the best location that fits your franchise and customer base.
Target Market & Demographics
Having a clear sense of your target market is essential to making the ideal franchise location selection. When you understand your target market, you can study the demographics of various areas to find what’s most suitable for your concept.
Demographics are the statistical data about the characteristics of a certain population, including things like age, gender, and income level; psychographics include more nuanced data classifications such as attitudes, aspirations, and other psychological information. Both will help you determine your target market and help inform your location and marketing decisions. By keeping a particular audience in mind during franchise location selection, you have a greater chance of achieving both immediate and long-term success. Before choosing a location, it is essential to identify your target customer and what drives them to your business. Your location should match both your concept and the type of customers you are hoping to attract.
Visibility
The best franchise locations have great curb appeal and are easy to find along your target customers’ typical routes. When people notice a new business, they become naturally curious. In fact, the curiosity factor will be one of the biggest draws in the early days of your location.
You will want to figure out how high the traffic is in your desired location. The greater the traffic, be it pedestrian or drive-by, the better your chances of attracting people off the street.
Before you commit to a location, visit the area throughout the day and night, both during the week and the weekend, to get a sense of traffic patterns. The franchisor should also have a way to determine a proper location. When selecting a franchise to invest in, be sure to ask about their site selection process.
Ease Of Access
Along with traffic patterns, you will want to consider the accessibility of your location and how it will affect your customers. Is there ample parking? Is it easy to find on Google Maps? When approaching the location, are there obstacles to getting there such as one-way streets, ongoing construction, and other things that could alienate potential customers?
Think about all the different ways people might access your business: public transit, on foot, bicycle, and car. Then consider how accessible a location is to those types of visitors. Simple tweaks, such as adding a bike rack in your parking lot or employing a valet service in a high-traffic downtown area, make your business more accessible and may provide a better return on investment in the long run.
Research The Competition
A little healthy competition can be a good thing, as it helps drive the market. Do some serious market research to determine the business landscape in your area. If you have an idea of where you would like to set up shop, scout out similar or complementary businesses to see how they’re succeeding, what they may lack, and how your business may fit in the mix.
Find The Right Home With Uni K Wax
Where you choose to open your business will impact your success almost as much as the products and services you provide. A lot of work goes into franchise location selection, and luckily for franchise owners, there are teams of experts charged with this very important task. Most franchisors are well equipped to help direct you in your location search, since finding the right spot will boost the brand’s visibility as a whole.
Uni K Wax enlists the expertise of market analysts and real estate professionals to provide franchisees with invaluable information about studio siting. Each Uni K location is designed to be a calming and restorative oasis for clients to be pampered and franchise owners to grow their business.
To learn more about franchising with Uni K Wax, request information here.