Trade area data sources — population and spend

Population estimates and retail spend estimates are the two input layers that drive trade area statistics for each co-location cluster. Both are derived from publicly available data sources and applied at the H3 resolution-7 hexagonal grid level, per the distance-band methodology. Together they supply the population and spend axes used by the deterministic ranking system and the catchment ranking methodology.

Population Data

Population estimates are sourced from Kontur Population, an H3-native population dataset delivered as per-country files at H3 resolution-8 — a finer grid than the resolution-7 hexagons the platform aggregates catchments to. Unlike a raster-based product, Kontur's population values are already bound to hexagon geometry at ingestion, so no raster-to-hexagon reprojection step is required.

Processing pipeline

1. Per-country ingestion: Each country's resolution-8 population file is read directly; only cells with a positive population value are retained.

2. H3 rollup: Each resolution-8 cell is resolved to its resolution-7 parent hexagon, and population values are summed across all resolution-8 children sharing a parent. H3 resolution-7 cells have an average area of 5.16 km².

3. Output: Population is aggregated to one record per resolution-7 cell, giving each cell's coordinates, summed population, and the set of countries contributing to it.

Countries covered

United States, Canada, Mexico, Spain, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Greece, and Portugal — 13 countries as of the current pipeline version. This is the set with published per-capita spend multipliers. It is a subset of the platform's broader co-location footprint, which spans 24 countries as of the most recent full processing run (2026-08-06). See Retail co-location intelligence — overview for full country coverage.

Spend Data

Spend estimates are synthesised by applying annual per-capita expenditure multipliers by retail category to the population grid. The multipliers are proxies derived from national household expenditure surveys.

Country	Grocery (p.a.)	Hardware (p.a.)	Wholesale (p.a.)	Currency
United States	$3,500	$1,200	$1,500	USD
Canada	C$3,200	C$1,100	C$1,300	CAD
Mexico	MX$18,000	MX$3,500	MX$2,500	MXN
Great Britain	£2,800	£850	£900	GBP
Germany	€2,900	€950	€1,000	EUR
France	€3,100	€900	€1,000	EUR
Netherlands	€2,700	€1,000	€1,100	EUR
Austria	€3,000	€950	€1,000	EUR
Portugal	€2,400	€600	€700	EUR
Greece	€2,200	€500	€600	EUR
Denmark	€3,500*	€1,200*	€1,100*	DKK*
Iceland	€4,000*	€1,500*	€1,500*	ISK*
Poland	PLN 8,000	PLN 2,000	PLN 2,500	PLN

Multipliers are expressed in local currency. Cross-country spend comparisons require foreign-exchange normalisation, which is not applied in the current pipeline. Rankings are most meaningful within a single country or within the eurozone.

* Denmark and Iceland are not eurozone members; their multipliers are shown here still denominated in euros pending re-derivation in DKK and ISK, and are not yet comparable to the eurozone figures above them.

Retail categories

• Grocery: Supermarkets, hypermarkets, food cooperatives, and food sections of general merchandise retailers.
• Hardware: Home improvement, building materials, and garden centres.
• Wholesale: Members-only warehouse clubs and cash-and-carry retailers.

Processing pipeline

Spend values are computed at the H3 resolution-7 level by multiplying each cell's aggregated population by the per-capita multipliers for its country, producing one record per H3 cell with population and estimated spend by category (grocery, hardware, wholesale) in local currency.

Catchment Aggregation

For each co-location cluster, primary and secondary catchment zones are defined by crow-flies distance rings (see: O-D Catchment Methodology). Population and spend for all H3 cells within each zone are summed to produce the cluster's trade area statistics. These aggregated values are the basis for cross-cluster competitive ranking.

Point-of-interest data

The retail anchor and secondary operator locations that form co-location cluster centroids are sourced from OpenStreetMap contributors under the Open Database Licence (ODbL). Point-of-interest data is distinct from the population and spend layers described above; it provides the geographic seed points from which catchment zones are measured. The full data-attribution statement covering all pipeline layers appears in Regional Markets intelligence system. [osm-odbl]

References

• Trade area — Wikipedia, accessed 2026-06-14
• Kontur Population Dataset — Kontur, accessed 2026-09-07
• H3: Uber's Hexagonal Hierarchical Spatial Index — H3 Geo, accessed 2026-06-14

Wikipedia content reproduced under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Kontur Population data licensed under CC BY 4.0.

OpenStreetMap data © OpenStreetMap contributors, licensed under ODbL.

See also

• Distance-band methodology — primary and secondary demand zones
• Composition-based catchment ranking methodology
• Retail co-location methodology

OpenStreetMap data © OpenStreetMap contributors, licensed under ODbL.