Most often heard advice on how to attract customers to your c-store or QSR, states “Make it a Destination Place” (always capitalized). Before we dare argue with this popular maxim, let’s look at the company that started the whole Destination Place hoopla – the venerable Starbucks.

Remember the good old days, when all Starbucks commercials showed hip people of all genders sipping lattes while their eyes were focused on their laptop screens?

Well, that was past. And now is, well, now.

Now we hear from Starbucks that “Starbucks spaces are for use by customers—this includes our cafes, patios and restrooms”, and violators will be asked to leave, and staff may ask for help from law enforcement to assure they are indeed leaving.

I can’t say I blame Starbucks. On the contrary, I applaud their decision. On countless occasions, when visiting Starbucks, I could not find a place to sit and enjoy my overpriced drink, because all the tables were hogged by the hip (or hip hop) people who felt that they could use the place as their free WeWork pad. Thus, paying patrons were penalized for the benefit of non-paying ones. Hard to see how this can be good for the bottom line.

But what about the Destination Place concept? Is this a wrong idea, should we all ditch it, because Starbucks?

No, the idea is fundamentally correct. It’s the implementation that matters. As always.

Today, the convenience stores are in competition with QSRs and deli counters of grocery stores for food-seeking customers. Do you want your place to be a destination – a kind of place that customers keep returning to, in order to spend money? The recipe is straightforward – give them the food they crave, prepared and packaged exactly as they want it.

As much as it is easy to state this, in order to give the customers whatever it is that they want, you – the store owner / operator, need to know what the “is” is.

This approach, popularized by Ticon, is called KYC (Know Your Customer). In retail, KYC means knowing the things about your customers that will help you better satisfy their needs and wishes.

In addition to traditional demographic reports by address, you can now also get Traffic Flow Demographics, a set of data describing the drivers in the flow of traffic that passes by your store.Ticon’s new product is available with nationwide coverage and high granularity, at Ticon’s industry-leading accuracy and precision.

So, if you want to be ahead of the game, give us a call to talk about asset store performance optimization with Ticon’s highly precise data.