The DEEN supermarket chain has 80 stores in the northwest of the Netherlands. This strong growing chain opened at least five stores a year in the past years. Sander Bot, business analyst at DEEN real estate: “Convincing management to work with RetailSonar was not difficult. Thanks to them, we can now objectively define our choices, instead of relying on a human, subjective assessment.”

“Every week we are offered new locations. It is impossible to visit them all and estimate the turnover of every location to see which new stores would have a cannibalisation effect on existing stores. That is why we chose to work with RetailSonar’s Network Planner to make an objective, first selection in the offering and determine which locations are worth visiting. We save a lot of time as a team and can focus on what really matters.”

In recent years, the DEEN supermarkets opened 5 to 6 new locations every year. It is very difficult to estimate the turnover for new locations. When you’re looking at supermarket volumes, and the money associated with them, making a wrong calculation can be quite costly. So everything that contributes to realistic sales figures, is worth its weight in gold”, Bot says.

“We can now draw up a detailed report in just one day, with an estimated turnover and a detailed analysis of the competition”.

They also save time, says Bot. “With the RetailSonar platform, we can now draw up a detailed report in just one day, with an estimated turnover and a detailed analysis of the competition for the new location. If we had to order such an analysis from a consultant, it would take weeks before we would have the same information as this depends on the consultant’s agenda.”

“The management and region managers are very enthusiastic because RetailSonar’s information helps us with our decisions on many levels, from the number of cash registers, the store layout, the analysis of the competitors and so on.”. Sander Bot: “Gradually we will arrive at even more insights that we can use when choosing a new location”.

“The platform also provides us a lot of important customer information very quickly. Where do our customers come from? Which income groups live nearby? Do we mainly have singles living nearby, or households with children and so on. Information that is important for defining our range, but also to support our marketing activities. Naturally we also want our flyers to be sent to people who will effectively use them.”