> Source: https://www.k-stra.com/for/retail-chains/ > Updated: 2026-11-03 Who it’s for · Retail chains # How can a retail chain find the gaps and overlaps in its store network? With ten stores the question is no longer whether one address works. It is what each store adds to the network, and what the next one will take from the others. In short A retail chain finds the gaps and overlaps in its network by drawing a drive-time catchment around every store, counting the residents each one reaches alone and those it shares with other stores of the chain, and then testing new sites for how much spending they add from the market rather than move from existing stores. [Map your network](https://www.k-stra.com/a/?src=for-retail-chains) Your questions ## What does a chain need to know about its network? - ### Where are the gaps? Residents no store of yours reaches within a few minutes, and the areas where the market is strong and you are absent. [Store network planning](https://www.k-stra.com/solutions/store-network-planning/) - ### Do my stores steal from each other? Residents that two or more of your stores share, store by store, and the territory you contest with competitors. [Cannibalisation analysis](https://www.k-stra.com/solutions/cannibalisation-analysis/) - ### Which new site adds the most? Candidate sites ranked by the spending they would capture minus what they would take from your own stores. [Retail site selection](https://www.k-stra.com/solutions/retail-site-selection/) - ### Where should a store move? A store’s current address against nearby alternatives, with the residents it would keep and the ones it would gain. [Store relocation](https://www.k-stra.com/solutions/store-relocation/) - ### Where do my customers live? Loyalty cards by postcode, how far customers travel to each store and the share of local spending each one earns. [Loyalty card analysis](https://www.k-stra.com/solutions/loyalty-card-analysis/) - ### Who are we up against? Competing brands store by store, their density per 10,000 residents and their estimated sales band where it is reliable. [Competitor analysis](https://www.k-stra.com/solutions/competitor-analysis/) The hard part ## Why do store networks drift out of shape? Networks grow one opening at a time, each decided on its own merits and its own lease. Ten years later two stores share most of their customers while a growing suburb a few minutes away has none. Sales reports hide the problem. A store that takes customers from a sister store looks healthy on its own figures; the loss shows up somewhere else, months later, as a decline nobody connects to the opening. The fix is to look at the network as one map: every store with its catchment, the residents each reaches alone, and the overlap between them. That map changes every time a store opens, closes or moves, so it has to be cheap to redraw. In K-Stra the map takes a few minutes and a few credits a store, so the question “what happens to the others?” can be asked before every decision, not once a year in a consultant’s report. What you get ## What does K-Stra give a chain that a single store does not need? - ### Coverage of the whole network Up to 500 stores, competitors and planned sites with their catchments, shared residents and contested territory. [Store network planning](https://www.k-stra.com/solutions/store-network-planning/) - ### Closure and opening plans Stores in the order their loss would leave the fewest residents uncovered, and sites in the order they add the most. [Cannibalisation analysis](https://www.k-stra.com/solutions/cannibalisation-analysis/) - ### Teams and limits One credit balance for the organisation, monthly limits per team and person, and a log of every run. [Teams and governance](https://www.k-stra.com/product/teams-and-governance/) - ### Reports for the board Results laid out as an A4 report or a presentation, exported to PDF or PPTX for free, or scheduled by email. [AI Reports](https://www.k-stra.com/product/ai-reports/) K-Stra runs on a dedicated server in Sydney: your datasets, your analyses and your results stay in Australia. Map tiles, payments and sign-in never see your files. Three steps can: geocoding sends only the address text, and only after you confirm; the AI assistant reads column names and values when you ask it about a dataset; email notifications carry figures from your analysis.[Where your data lives](https://www.k-stra.com/product/coverage/#where-your-data-lives) . Mark a dataset “session only” and it is deleted 24 hours after upload. Worked example ## What does a network look like on one map? A sample chain of 10 bakery-cafés in Brisbane QLD, each given a 5-minute catchment by car. Inside an area of 909,837 residents, the network reaches 356,862 today. Its weakest link is New Farm: 99.4% of its residents are also within reach of another store of the chain. The chain then tests two sites, Holland Park and Kenmore. Together they would add 38,857 residents to the network. The table shows what each brings, and the full walk-through of the closure and opening plans is on the [store network planning](https://www.k-stra.com/solutions/store-network-planning/) page. *[Image: K-Stra Coverage in Brisbane: 10 stores of a sample bakery-café chain and 2 planned sites with their 5-minute catchments drawn in blue, and the residents each one reaches listed in the panel on the right.]* Coverage · Brisbane 356,862 residents reached todayWhere the blue builds up, catchments of the same chain overlap. The two planned sites sit in gaps to the south-east and the west. Example ## What would two new stores add to the network? The two planned sites of the sample chain, each with a 5-minute catchment. “New residents” are those no store of the chain reaches today. Captured spending is the modelled yearly spending of the catchment’s residents that a site would capture. Planned sites of a sample chain in Brisbane QLD: residents in reach, residents new to the network and modelled spending captured Planned site Residents in reach New to the network Captured spending (A$ M a year) Holland Park 48,359 24,734 27.70 Kenmore 14,780 14,123 11.14 Sources: sample store network of a fictional chain in a K-Stra sample account; ABS population at 30 June 2025; K-Stra Coverage of 1 November 2026, 5 minutes by car per point, spending model of the bars and cafés sector. Reading the numbers ## Is the bigger site the better one? Holland Park reaches far more people, but half of them are already the chain’s: it would take 31% of the spending Mount Gravatt captures today. Kenmore is smaller and almost entirely new ground. Of the A$38.84 million a year the two would capture, 22% comes from the chain’s own stores. Whether that is acceptable is a business decision; the point is to know it before the lease, as a modelled order of magnitude for comparing sites. Cost ## How much does a network review cost? Coverage costs 5 credits for every store or site, whatever the size of the network: a hundred stores cost 500 credits per review and ten stores 50. There is no fee per seat: a team shares one balance. [How credits work](https://www.k-stra.com/pricing/how-credits-work/) - Markets & Brands, one brand5 credits per brand 5 credits - Coverage of the 10 stores and 2 sites5 credits per store or candidate 60 credits - Store file import1 credit per 10,000 rows 1 credit - Map, closure and opening plans, exports Free - This network review\= 66 credits - ≈ A$101 at the Single report pack rate of A$1.53 a credit; less with larger packs and monthly plans. Optional, not in the total - Compare new sitesper candidate site \+ 20 credits The estimate appears before the run starts, and a run that fails costs nothing. FAQ ## What else do retail chains ask? ### How many stores can K-Stra analyse at once? Coverage takes up to 500 points in one run — your stores, competitors and planned sites — each with its own drive-time catchment, at 5 credits a point. A site comparison takes one to five new sites at 20 credits each. ### What does K-Stra tell me about the potential of a new store? It estimates how much of the catchment residents’ yearly spending a site could capture and from whom, including your own stores. That is a modelled share of resident spending, useful to compare sites of the same sector in the same area, whose absolute value is an order of magnitude. Workers, commuters, tourists and passing trade are not counted, so central, tourist and station sites come out underestimated. ### Does K-Stra decide which stores to close? No. The closure plan orders stores by how few residents would be left with none of your stores in reach, one closure at a time. It shows where to look first; rents, staff, sales and leases stay with you. ### Can several people in the chain work on the same account? Yes. An organisation has one credit balance, teams with their own monthly limits, roles for each person, and a log of every analysis with who ran it and what it cost. ### Can I use my loyalty card data? Yes, as counts and spending by postcode or by anonymised card, without names. Customer Loyalty shows where each store’s customers live, the share of local spending it earns and what a new opening would move, at 20 credits a store. Related pages - [Who K-Stra is for](https://www.k-stra.com/for/) - [Franchise networks](https://www.k-stra.com/for/franchise-networks/) - [Store network planning](https://www.k-stra.com/solutions/store-network-planning/) - [Supermarkets and grocery](https://www.k-stra.com/industries/supermarkets-and-grocery/) - [What is a catchment area?](https://www.k-stra.com/geomarketing/catchment-area/) - [Teams and governance](https://www.k-stra.com/product/teams-and-governance/) Your turn ## See your network as one map. Put your stores on the map, give each a catchment and see the gaps and overlaps before the next opening. [Open the app — free to explore](https://www.k-stra.com/a/?src=for-retail-chains) Coverage 5 credits per store, after you confirm the estimate