Footfall data for retail
Open stores where they'll actually trade
A signed lease is one of the hardest decisions in retail to reverse. WhereThen shows you how many people pass a site, when they visit and who they are — before you commit, and for a fraction of the cost of getting it wrong.
Free demo access to five example coffee shop locations — no card required.
Why retailers use footfall data
Footfall tells you how many potential customers a location has and when; demographics tell you who they are and whether they'll actually buy. Together they de-risk the expensive decisions — and help you run each store profitably once it's trading.
Site selection and viability
High footfall in the wrong demographic is useless. A luxury brand and a discount grocer can sit on streets with identical pedestrian counts and only one will thrive. Forecast potential from real visitor volumes and profiles, and justify — or walk away from — the rent.
Catchment and customer profiling
See who actually visits a location: age, household composition, education and economic activity, built from visitors' home areas rather than just local residents. Check the catchment matches your target customer before you invest.
Product range and merchandising
Tailor what you stock to who is there. Carry premium ranges in affluent catchments and value lines elsewhere; weight the offer towards young families, students or older shoppers based on evidence rather than assumption.
Staffing and opening hours
Hourly and daily visit patterns show exactly when each location is busy. Put more people on the floor at peak times, avoid overstaffing quiet periods, and set trading hours that match real demand.
Competition and gap analysis
Spot underserved areas competitors have missed — and avoid markets that are already saturated. Compare footfall and demographics across any set of prospective locations side by side.
Performance benchmarking
Judge each store against the traffic it actually receives. A "weak" store may be converting brilliantly from low footfall while a "strong" one underperforms its location — conversion against footfall tells you which is which.
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 growing café brand chooses its next site
An independent café operator with four sites has shortlisted three vacant units for its fifth. The rents differ by £18,000 a year and the landlords all claim their pitch is the busiest.
In WhereThen, the operator compares the three units alongside its two best existing cafés. One unit has the highest total footfall, but the hourly profile shows it peaks after 6pm — long after a breakfast-and-lunch café has closed. A cheaper unit shows a strong 7–10am commuter flow and a visitor profile that closely matches the brand's best-performing site.
The operator takes the cheaper unit, uses the data to negotiate on rent, and sets opening hours and the staff rota from the hourly visit curve on day one.
One avoided bad lease — or one extra successful opening — pays for the data many times over.
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 expertSee a site before you sign for it
Start with the free demo — five real coffee-shop locations with full footfall and demographic data — or send us your shortlist and we'll show you what the data says.
Three free searches, anywhere in the UK. See real footfall for the locations you actually care about — no card required.