Footfall data for investors
Underwrite location risk with real-world evidence
Whether you're backing a franchise rollout, acquiring a multi-site operator or lending against retail and leisure assets, footfall data turns location risk from a judgement call into something you can measure.
Free demo access to five example coffee shop locations — no card required.
Why investors use footfall data
Any location-dependent business case ultimately rests on people showing up. Independent footfall evidence lets you test that assumption before capital is committed — and keep testing it afterwards.
Due diligence
Verify that a target's trading claims are consistent with the traffic its sites actually receive. Footfall that contradicts the story is a red flag worth finding before completion, not after.
Portfolio benchmarking
Rank every site in a portfolio by footfall volume, timing profile and catchment quality. Underperformers and hidden gems both show up when sales are read against the traffic available.
Underwriting expansion
Test a rollout thesis site by site against real visitor volumes and demographics. A pipeline that looks strong on a map can look very different against actual footfall curves.
Asset valuation support
Independent footfall trends support — or challenge — the assumptions behind retail and leisure asset valuations, and give credit committees an external reference point.
Monitoring after the deal
Track footfall at portfolio sites over time as an early-warning indicator between reporting periods. Declining traffic often shows up before declining revenue.
A defensible IC paper
Much of the value is internal: an evidence-backed case your investment committee can interrogate beats a qualitative story, and the data is there to defend every assumption.
What you get with WhereThen
Everything below is available self-serve in the platform — and as raw data or a bespoke report when you need it.
How busy each location is
Precise daily counts of pedestrians and non-pedestrians for any UK location in coverage — a true picture of the traffic a site actually receives.
When people visit
Hourly, daily and monthly visit patterns reveal peaks, dead spots and seasonality, so timing decisions rest on the real demand curve.
Who the visitors are
Census-based demographic profiles built from visitors' home locations — age, household composition, education and economic activity — for the people who actually visit, not just those who live nearby.
Compare and rank sites
Score any set of locations side by side — existing sites, prospects and competitor pitches — and see instantly which comes out on top.
Points of interest and catchment
See the competing and complementary businesses around each site, and how far visitors travel to reach it.
Take the data with you
Every chart is downloadable, and the underlying raw data is available when your own analysts or models need it.
Example scenario
A fund diligences a multi-site operator
A private equity firm is evaluating a 40-site food and beverage chain. Management's growth story leans heavily on "strong high-street locations" — an assertion the deal team needs to test in weeks, not months.
Using WhereThen, the team benchmarks every site: footfall volume, hourly profile and visitor demographics, read against unit-level revenue from the data room. Most sites convert in a healthy band. A cluster of six convert far below it — well-located units underperforming the traffic outside their doors.
The finding reshapes the deal: those six sites anchor the operational value-creation plan, and the conversion benchmark becomes a monitoring metric post-completion.
Location risk quantified before the ink dries — and a benchmark that keeps working after it.
Work with us your way
WhereThen is more than a dashboard. Behind it is WhereData, a location-data company that can support you at whatever depth you need — from instant self-serve analytics to fully bespoke consultancy.
Self-serve platform
Instant footfall analytics in your browser. Search a location and see visitor volumes, visit timing and demographics in minutes — no data team required, and priced so smaller businesses can afford it.
Get 3 free searchesRaw footfall data
License the datasets behind the platform: hourly footfall and footfall-origin data for UK towns and cities, delivered ready for your own models, GIS tools and data warehouse.
Talk to us about dataBespoke analysis & insights
Our analysts answer your specific question — site shortlists, catchment reports, portfolio benchmarks, before-and-after impact studies — delivered as clear reports you can put in front of a board or committee.
Discuss a briefConsultancy
Work with the WhereData team on the harder problems: methodology, data integration, ongoing monitoring programmes and evidence for high-stakes location decisions.
Talk to an expertEvidence on a deal timeline
Raw data for your own models or a bespoke report ready for the investment committee — tell us the sites and the deadline and we'll work to it.
Three free searches, anywhere in the UK. See real footfall for the locations you actually care about — no card required.