How to use Market Share (step by step)

What the Market Share tool tells you

Imagine three pizza shops in the same part of town. Some customers live right next to one shop and will almost always pick it. Others live between two or three shops and could go to any of them. Market Share works out how those customers split up - how many each shop is likely to win, and how big each shop's slice of the whole pie is.

You use it to answer very practical questions: If I open here, how many customers will I realistically capture? How much will a competitor next door cost me? If I open a second store, will it bring in new customers or just steal from my first one? This guide walks you through it from the first click to the final report. No maps background needed - we explain every term as we go.

At the top of the map there is a tool menu. Open it and choose Market Share. (The other modes are for general map exploration and area workflows; Market Share is the one that compares stores against competitors.)

You work with two groups: My stores (the blue ones - yours) and Competitors (the red/orange ones). Add a location two ways: type an address into the search box, or click Add by clicking the map and drop a pin. You can rename any location and drag its pin to move it.

Each location also has an Attractiveness number. Leave it at 1 if all the stores are roughly equal. Make it bigger for a location that pulls more strongly - a larger floor area, a flagship, a stronger brand.

A catchment (also called a trade area) is the area a store can realistically serve. You set one rule that applies to every store - for example, “5 minutes by bike” or “2 km by car” - and Geo-Intel draws the matching zone around each pin. Pick a travel mode (driving, walking, cycling), choose whether to measure by time or distance, set the value, then press Generate catchments.

Market share is only contested where these zones overlap. The parts of a catchment no competitor reaches are captured outright; the overlap is where the real competition happens.

By default, demand just means the number of people living in an area - everyone counts equally. But maybe you only care about a certain kind of customer. In the Demand profile section you can tilt the demand toward the people you want - for example, higher-income households or a particular age group.

Tick a characteristic and choose a direction: Cluster (high) means “I want more of this” and Gap (low) means “I want less of this.” If you skip this step, every resident is simply weighted the same - which is perfectly fine.

When customers sit between several stores, what decides which one is “closer”? You pick the method:

• Straight line - the simple “as the crow flies” distance. It is instant and free, and good enough for a first look.
• Route - the real travel time along actual roads. More realistic (rivers, motorways, and one-way streets all matter), so it is the better choice for a final decision.

Under Customize model parameters there are two dials. You can ignore them and the defaults work well - but here is what they do, in plain terms:

• Attractiveness enhancement (α) - how much a store's size/strength matters. Turn it up and the “big” stores pull even harder.
• Distance decay (β) - how quickly people give up as a store gets farther away. Turn it up and customers stick much more strongly to their nearest store.

Right below is the Own-network overlap switch. Leave it On for the realistic picture (your nearby stores share the customers they both reach). Flip it Off to see how each of your stores would do as if it were the only one - which reveals how much overlap your own network is creating.

Press Calculate

When your stores have catchments, hit Calculate market share. Nothing runs until you ask it to (Route mode in particular uses a paid map service, so the tool never surprises you). Change anything afterwards and a Recalculate prompt appears.

Tip: start with Straight line to explore for free, then switch to Route for the final answer.

This is the payoff. The boxes at the top are the headline numbers, and the table lists every store from biggest winner to smallest. Here is what each number means:

• My captured demand & My market share - how many customers your stores win in total, and that as a percentage of everyone in the analysis.
• Total catchment demand - all the customers across every store's trade area. Competitor share is the slice the competition takes.
• Contested demand - customers in the overlap who had to be split. Cannibalized demand - the customers your own stores took from each other.

In the table, each store shows Exclusive (customers only it reaches), Contested (its share of the overlap), Captured (the two added together), and Share (%). The Overlap: On/Off button and the CSV export sit right above the table.

Finally, the tool profiles the people in the overlap - the customers everyone is fighting over. You get a quick read on population, density, average age, the share of foreign nationals, nearby points of interest, and more. It is the same demographic snapshot used elsewhere in Geo-Intel, focused on the battleground.

That helps you sanity-check the result: if the contested customers don't look like the people you want, you might reposition a store, shrink the catchment, or shape demand back in Step 4.

Every term, in one place

Bookmark this if a word ever trips you up.

Catchment (trade area)

The area a store can realistically serve - everywhere within, say, a 10-minute drive.

Demand

The customers in an area. By default this is the number of people who live there.

Exclusive demand

Customers only one store can reach. That store captures all of them.

Contested demand

Customers who could visit two or more stores, so the stores have to share them.

Captured demand

The total a store wins: its exclusive customers plus its share of the contested ones.

Market share

Your captured demand as a percentage of all the demand in the analysis.

Cannibalization

Demand your own stores take from each other when they sit too close together.

Huff model

A simple rule of thumb: a closer, bigger, or stronger store wins a larger share of shared customers.

The whole workflow, in six lines

• Open the tool menu and choose Market Share.
• Add your stores (blue) and competitors (red/orange).
• Draw a catchment - a drive-time or distance trade area - for each store.
• Pick how distance is measured: Straight line for free, or Route for realistic travel time.
• Optionally shape demand and fine-tune the model, then press Calculate.
• Read the report: your captured demand, market share, contested overlap, and cannibalization.