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Selecting Your Business Location

Location, location, location!

Selecting the business location to operate your business from is a key factor that affects your success, failure, and profitability. This is true whether the business is a restaurant, dentist, bike shop, or shoe shop.

We have all seen certain restaurant locations that are ‘bad’ and seem jinxed by the gods. Every new restaurant that opens with promise goes broke within one to two years to be replaced by another hopeful. The food, service, or menu, is not the problem, it is the location.

The factors to consider when choosing a business location include:

  • Type of business – What products will you be selling, how much space will you need?
  • Demographics – Who is your target customer and what is their gender, age, income level, and occupation. How far will prospective customers travel to shop at your location? There is no point putting an upmarket clothing shop in a run-down poor suburb.
  • Competition – The aim is to be surrounded by good competitors that complement your business by drawing a similar target audience to your business.
  • Traffic Patterns – Both vehicle and pedestrian traffic patterns are important. The ant trail or foot traffic is important as it allows potential customers to flow easily into the business. The more difficult it is for potential customers to access your business, the less they will actually make the effort to.
  • Zoning and planning – This has an effect on signage, fitout and design, type of business to be operated from the premises, and operating hours.

The key to selecting the right business location to give your business the most chance of success is to do your homework, consider the five factors above, and make the time to analyse a large number of potential business locations. This is one business decision that needs to be done right and not rushed.