top of page
Search

Before You Commit: Do You Have Real Market Research — or Just a Feeling That "the Market Is Good"?

Two investors look at the same street in Amman. One sees a busy road and concludes the market is strong. The other asks who exactly is walking there, what they earn, what they already buy nearby, and what nobody is selling them yet. Twelve months after opening, only one of them is still confident.

The gap between "I think" and "I know"

Most commercial decisions in our region are still made on impressions: a friend's success, a crowded evening, a landlord's enthusiasm. Impressions are not worthless — they are how opportunities get noticed. The mistake is deploying capital on them before converting them into evidence.

Market research is simply that conversion. It does not replace an investor's instinct; it tests it while testing is still cheap.

What research actually measures

  • Catchment area: who genuinely lives and works within a realistic travel time — not the whole city.

  • Demographics and spending power: age profile, household size, income bands, and how much of that income reaches retail.

  • Competitive supply: what already serves this catchment, plus what is licensed and coming next year.

  • Demand gap: the categories this population wants and cannot conveniently get.

  • Footfall and behavior: when people actually move, how long they stay, and which categories have shifted online.

Three mistakes we see repeatedly

  • Using national averages. Income and behavior change street by street. A country-level number hides the decision you are actually making.

  • Counting existing competition only. The project that opens six months after you, in the same catchment, is the one that changes your numbers.

  • Researching to confirm. A study commissioned to justify a decision already made is a marketing document, not research.

What changes when you start with evidence

The concept narrows: instead of "a commercial building," you know which use, which categories, which tenant profile. The financial model gains a defensible base. Leasing conversations change tone, because tenants recognize an owner who knows his catchment. And the decision to walk away — sometimes the most profitable one available — becomes possible.

Across the Levant, Egypt, Turkey, and the Gulf, we are entering the most competitive decade our commercial sector has seen. Capital is available; certainty is not. Research is how the two get connected.

A note from the field

In the projects we have worked on across the Levant and the Gulf — from single stores and restaurants to full commercial complexes — the obstacle was rarely a shortage of capital. It was a shortage of the right question at the right time. That is the work we do at RETAILBIG: helping owners ask before they spend, and turning instinct into a plan they can defend. You can read how we work, and who is behind it, on our About page.

Considering a location, a concept, or an investment? Send us a brief and receive a complimentary 15–30 minute consultation: Contact RETAILBIG

Images: Pexels (free to use) — photos by ThisIsEngineering, Lywin, and Nur Andi Ravsanjani Gusma.

Read also from RETAILBIG

 
 
bottom of page