Is AI Slowly Stealing the Competitive Advantage of Site Selection?

A few months ago, I wrote about how traditional trade area analysis is dead. Radius rings and demographic overlays can't capture the micro-market dynamics that actually drive retail performance.

But here's what I've been thinking about since: if AI and dynamic location analytics are the answer, what happens when 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺𝘰𝘯𝘦 has access to them?

The Floor is Rising

AI tools are democratizing insights that used to take weeks to compile. Foot traffic patterns, demographic and persona data, competitive analysis, crime data, etc. - it's all available faster and cheaper than ever. The grunt work that once separated the well-resourced from the rest? Largely commoditized.

That's not a bad thing. But it does raise a question: if everyone can pull the same data, where does the competitive edge come from?

The Ceiling Stays Human

Here's what AI still can't do:

It can't walk a trade area and notice that the new coffee shop is pulling traffic from the opposite direction than the data suggests. It can't sit across from a landlord and learn they're six months from selling...intel that won't hit any database. It can't feel the "vibe" of a site that looks great on paper but sits in a dead zone between two traffic patterns.

The screen shows you what happened. The street shows you what's happening!

The Real Gap Isn't AI Adoption - It's Knowing What to Ask

AI makes getting to insights faster. But only if you're feeding it the right data and framing the right questions. Most professionals are still asking AI to confirm what they already believe rather than challenging their assumptions.

The winners won't be the ones who use AI the most. They'll be the ones who use AI to handle the baseline work faster and then reinvest that time into boots on the ground intelligence, relationship building, and the kind of pattern recognition that only comes from experience.

This Requires a New Kind of Team

It's not enough to have analysts who can run the tools. You need people who can translate between the data and the deal. People who know which questions to ask before the AI spits out an answer. People who can connect what the dashboard shows to what the drive-by reveals.

This hybrid skill set isn't optional anymore. It's the new table stakes.

Bringing it Home

AI is raising the floor for everyone in site selection. The baseline is higher. The speed is faster. But the ceiling , the insights that actually create competitive advantage, remains stubbornly human.

The question isn't whether you're using AI. It's whether you're building the team and the habits to stay above the rising floor.

Are you using AI to get smarter, or just to get faster? And if it's just faster, what happens when everyone else catches up?

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Nostalgic Retail Spotlight:

STEIN MART

Founded in 1908 by Sam Stein, the first Stein Mart store was opened in Greenville, Mississippi. Sam's death in 1932 led to his son, Jake Stein, assuming the leadership position and converted the core offerings from general merchandise to discounted clothing.

"Under Jay Stein's leadership, Stein Mart grew from three stores in 1977 to 40 stores in 1990, and then to 123 stores by the end of 1996. In determining the prime locations for new Stein Mart stores, management targeted cities with populations of 125,000 or more and relied on demographic research regarding income, education, and occupation to help predict whether a community might support a discounter of designer merchandise." [Wikipedia]

By 2013, Stein Mart operated in 29 states with a total of around 260 stores.

Financial struggles and the impact of changing consumer shopping trends surfaced in 2017 and by early 2018 Stein Mart announced that it would explore strategic alternatives to keep the company afloat.

In early 2020, Stein Mart announced its intention to take the company private, but on April 16, 2020 the buyout was called off by mutual agreement. The unpredictable economic conditions caused by the COVID pandemic that ensued ata bout the same time left Stein Mart with no options and the chain filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in August, 2020, shuttering all 279 stores. Stein Mart also announces that its assets were available for sale and in late 2020, Retail Ecommerce Ventures acquired its assets for $6.02 million.

"In March 2023, Retail Ecommerce Ventures (REV) announced that it would be exploring options in effort to save themselves, including a potential Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing, which would mark Stein Mart's second bankruptcy in 3 years." [Wikipedia]

A group of investors that backed REV, Omni Retail Enterprises, purchased the REV brand portfolio that now includes Bodybuilding.com, Pier 1.com, DressBarn.com, Mentorbox.com, and owns the intellectual property of Modell’s Sporting Goods, Franklin Mint, SteinMart, Linens-N-Things, and Ralph & Russo in mid-2024.

Steinmart.com has been in operation since 2020 (thanks to REV) and continues to operate today.