Errors in Retail Demand Outlook and Business Summary Reports for Petersburg, VA

Question

I'm a graduate student using Business Analyst to help conduct a market analysis for the city of Petersburg, VA. I've done some ground truthing in the city and the numbers in the reports I have run (Retail Demand Outlook, Retail Market Potential, Business Summary) are significantly off. What can I do about this? What are the data sources?

JordanM_Support · Answer

Hi @ClaireParkey ,

I apologize for not following up sooner. If you are still facing this issue, are you able to share the variables that appear inflated? Are the population counts incorrect, does spending appear inflated, or is there another category of variables that appears incorrect?

Additionally, are you running these reports for standard geographies or custom sites?

Best,

Jordan

ClaireParkey · Answer

So I am using the web app and the 2022 data. My concern isn't this report compared to the 2021 data, but the reports compared to the actual realities in the city.  It seems like an issue with a multiplier or incorrect data. The results are just grossly inflated compared to ground truthing.

JordanM_Support · Answer

Hi @ClaireParkey ,

The data sources are listed on the Esri Demographics web resources. I see that Market Potential Data is provided by Esri and MRI-Simmons, while Business Summary data is sourced from Esri and Data Axle.

I do have some questions to better understand the issue you are experiencing:

* Are you running this analysis in Business Analyst for ArcGIS Pro, or Business Analyst Web App?
* Additionally, do you know the vintage of data that you are using (2021 vs. 2022)?

The 2022 dataset is the first to be built from 2020 Decennial Census Geographies and updated counts, meaning that the same study area can have a significant difference when compared to the 2021 dataset, which is built from the 2010 Decennial Census Geographies and counts.

Thanks,

Jordan