Article · By Launch Point · Data & Analytics
Ask most local businesses to describe their market and you’ll get a number. Five miles. Ten miles. The county.
Then look at where the customers actually come from, and the circle falls apart. One direction is a highway nobody crosses. Another is a competitor two exits closer. A third pulls people from twice the distance because of a school district, a hospital or a commute.
Your trade area is a shape drawn by traffic, habit and competition. It is almost never a circle.
Customers stay closer than you think, and not evenly
Placer.ai’s analysis of retail visits in 2026 found roughly 60% of store visits originate within five miles, and about 44% within three [1]. Most visits are short, with the largest group lasting under 15 minutes [1].
That distribution is the whole argument. A single ring either wastes money on the far edge or misses the 40% of demand that sits outside it. And the misses aren’t random. They cluster along the roads people already drive.
This is why site selection and trade area work has moved from rings to drive times. Practitioners planning new locations now build trade areas from drive times, traffic patterns and physical barriers instead of radius, and weigh observed customer behavior alongside demographics [2].
What location data can tell you
Mobile location data, used well, answers questions that used to be opinion:
- Where your customers actually come from. Not where you hope they do.
- Which competitors share your customers. And which of their visitors match your best-customer profile.
- How far people will travel for what you sell. A quick service restaurant and an orthodontist have very different gravity.
- Whether media moved anyone. Visit lift compares exposed and unexposed households, which is how streaming, radio and out-of-home get credit they never get from a click report.
- Where to open next. Site analysis models the customer base and expected revenue before you sign a lease.
And what it can’t
Be a skeptic about precision. A peer-reviewed study of a major US location panel found it sampled about 7.5% of the population, with device counts tracking census population closely at the county level but far less reliably at census tract and block group level, and with minority groups underrepresented in ways that varied by place and time [3].
The practical reading: location data is excellent for patterns, direction and comparison. It is not a census. Use it to decide where to concentrate, not to claim an exact headcount, and be wary of any vendor who reports visits to three decimal places.
The ground under location data is moving
Two developments from 2026 matter for anyone buying location-based targeting.
In May 2026, the FTC banned data broker Kochava and a subsidiary from selling sensitive location data, requiring express consent and a program to identify sensitive locations [4].
And states are legislating. Virginia banned the sale of precise geolocation data effective July 1, 2026 [5]. Maryland’s privacy law treats location within about 1,750 feet as sensitive data and prohibits its sale outside narrow exceptions, with the law effective October 2025 and applying to processing from April 2026 [6].
Florida businesses aren’t directly covered by those two laws, but the direction is unmistakable. Ask any partner where their location data comes from, how consent was obtained, and how it holds up state by state. A trade area built on data you can’t explain is a liability, not an asset.
Five moves that don’t require new software
- Geocode your own customers. Export the last 12 months of sales with ZIP or street address and map them. Your own data is first-party, compliant and free.
- Find the 70% line. Draw the shape that contains 70% of your customers. That’s your core market. Fund it first.
- Replace radius with drive time. Ask for 10 and 20 minute drive times instead of miles, and look at what barriers cut them.
- Name three competitors. Ask whose customers look like yours, and where the overlap is.
- Tie media to geography. Target the shape, not the county, then watch calls, visits and branded search by area.
Most local businesses are already sitting on the answer. It’s in the sales records, waiting to be put on a map.
Want to see your real trade area? Schedule a Conversation with the Launch Point data team, or read the full guide, Grounded in Data.
Sources
- Placer.ai, The 2026 Retail Consumer in Five Charts, Aug. 26, 2026. https://www.placer.ai/anchor/reports/the-2026-retail-consumer-in-5-charts
- Franchise Times, How AI is redefining franchise trade area planning, Aug. 28, 2026. https://www.franchisetimes.com/franchise_operations/how-ai-is-redefining-franchise-trade-area-planning/article_e79c6f25-19a1-4a06-82fb-294606bec4e8.html
- Li, Ning, Jing and Lessani (University of South Carolina), PLOS ONE, Jan. 19, 2024. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0294430
- Federal Trade Commission, FTC action against Kochava, May 4, 2026. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2026/05/ftc-ban-kochava-subsidiary-selling-sensitive-location-data-settle-charges-they-sold-location-data
- Virginia SB 338, signed Apr. 13, 2026, effective July 1, 2026, as reported by Hunton Andrews Kurth. https://www.hunton.com/privacy-and-cybersecurity-law-blog/virginia-bans-sale-of-geolocation-data
- Maryland Online Data Privacy Act, effective Oct. 1, 2025, applying to processing from Apr. 1, 2026, as summarized by Cooley. https://www.cooley.com/news/insight/2025/2025-09-09-marylands-unique-state-privacy-law-takes-effect-october-1–what-you-should-know