Opening a business location
From an idea for a site to a case with measured numbers in it: catchment, growth, break-even, lease, staff.
Ends with: A site case that started from break-even and survived the catchment arithmetic.
Site decisions are made on an afternoon of watched foot traffic and a feeling about the street, and then defended for the length of a lease. Most of the case can be measured first. How many people live within reach of the door is published data. Whether that number is rising is published data. What the site must sell to clear its rent is arithmetic.
The sequence below runs the decision in the order that kills bad sites cheapest: the entity, the catchment, the trend, the break-even, then the lease, the staff and the cashflow that decide whether a good site stays one.
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The entity before the address
Sole trader, partnership or company changes tax, risk and what a landlord will ask of you. Settle it before anything is signed.
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How many people are within reach of the site
The first measurable fact about any address, and the ceiling on local demand. Measured, not felt, for any of 2,210 areas at any radius.
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Is the catchment growing or shrinking?
A lease is a bet on the next five years of the neighbourhood. The population trend since 2022 is published for every area.
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What the households in reach actually spend
Spend per customer assumptions should start from measured household spending, not hope. The categories are published, by region and household size.
Work out your own: Household spending data 7 min read -
What the site must sell to exist
Rent, margin and volume meet in one number. If break-even needs an implausible share of the catchment, the address is wrong and no fit-out fixes it.
Work out your own: Break-Even Calculator 8 min read -
The lease, which is most of the risk
Opex, ratchets and make-good clauses move a site case by more than the rent line does. Read the lease as a set of numbers before loving the shopfront.
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The staff the site commits you to
A second location is usually a hiring decision wearing a property costume. Price the fully loaded cost of the people the site needs.
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Can staff and customers actually get there?
A site your staff cannot affordably reach recruits from a smaller pool and pays for it. The same arithmetic your customers are running about you.
Work out your own: Commute Cost Calculator 5 min read -
Surviving the season the site was priced in
Catchments spend unevenly across the year and a lease does not. Cashflow is where good sites with bad timing die.
When to stop and get someone else
A lease is worth a lawyer before signature, and a lease with a ratchet clause is worth one twice. The steps here size the decision; they do not review the document.
This pathway is information, not financial advice. Rates, thresholds and rules change; every guide carries the date it was last reviewed.
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