The Next Generation of Sales Forecasting

What a great idea!

SITESPLUS™ is the world’s most powerful and widely used sales forecasting system for supermarkets.

FIT™ is a computer program which measures the “acceptance” (or FIT) of different store formats to the demographics of the area and is backed by years of detailed research.

Together they create SITESPLUS™ 2010.1, the most powerful supermarket sales analytic tool ever designed.

Background

SITESPLUS™, a product of Gravitec Development, is a full-featured gravity-based program used to forecast sales and market changes for supermarkets.  Since its first release twenty-five years ago, SITESPLUS™ has become the most widely-used forecasting system for retailers, wholesalers and consulting firms in the world due to its accuracy, its powerful features and its legendary support.

FIT™, a product of DSR Marketing Systems, is an Excel-based computer program that is the culmination of many years spent analyzing consumer shopping patterns.  The result is an application that accurately predicts the acceptance level of a variety of store formats based on consumer demographics.

SITESPLUS™ 2010.1 is engineered to work directly with the FIT™ program to produce superior forecasting accuracy for reports and graphics.

SITESPLUS + FIT answers the questions:

●       How well does my store’s format fit this location?

●       What store format fits this location best?

●       Where are the best locations for my store’s format?

How Does It Work?

Using SITESPLUS™ and FIT™ together is easy!

First, build your base model in SITESPLUS™ as you normally would.

Next, use the FIT™ program and enter your sector demographics.  FIT™ will calculate a “FIT Factor” for each sector and store format combination.  Paste these factors into your SITESPLUS™ project.

Now tell SITESPLUS™ which format is correct for each store.  For example, tell SITESPLUS™ that store-1 is a “Supercenter” and store-2 is “Discount.”

Finally, balance and project your models as usual – let SITESPLUS™ do all of the heavy lifting.  Where consumer acceptance is high, market shares will be lifted.  Where acceptance is low, market shares will be lowered.

Does It Really Make a Difference?

Yes!  The effects can be dramatic!  Smaller studies in relatively homogeneous areas will benefit less than larger areas with a variety of store formats and consumer profiles. 

In an actual trade area in the southwest, a medium-sized store was simulated using different FIT™ store formats.  The table below shows the sales projections that resulted by simulating different formats.  All other data were exactly the same.  (Remember that every trade area is different, and results will vary.) 

                                                             Store 1: Uptown Grocer
                                                     Format Code 6 – Quality/Service

                                                 Format               Name                         Site FIT
                                                     1                    Conventional                   97
                                                     2                    Discount                        108
                                                     3                    Hispanic                          55
                                                     4                    Lmt. Assort.                    87
                                                     5                    Natural/Organic               73
                                                     6                    Quality/Service                87
                                                     7                    Supercenter                     97
                                                     8                    Warehouse                      86

                                               T.A. FIT                                                    100