Compare local markets using public business signals
Assemble public information about a geographic area to compare competition, customer experience, and potential business opportunities.
How this works
Assemble public information about a geographic area to compare competition, customer experience, and potential business opportunities. Local market research should compare real service areas and customer experiences rather than count every nearby business as an equivalent competitor. Public reviews, opening hours, and prices can be stale, so the brief should identify what needs local verification.
Define a geographic catchment and business category, collect permitted public signals, and normalize comparable offerings. Group customer-experience themes without claiming a representative survey. Use the findings to prepare site visits, interviews, or offer tests.
Before you start
Location question
State the business decision and practical travel or service radius.
Comparable offer
Define which services and customer situations belong in the comparison.
Source plan
Choose public listings, websites, and review material with dates.
Prepare the inputs
- geographic_scope
- Required
Area or travel boundary
Use a meaningful catchment rather than an arbitrary map box.
- business_records
- Required
Locations and services
Deduplicate branches and aliases.
- public_signals
- Required
Prices, hours, reviews
Record source and observation date.
- comparison_criteria
- Required
Service and experience fields
Keep unlike offerings separate.
- decision_question
- Required
Planned action
State what local evidence could change.
Implementation, step by step
Define the catchment
- Map the service area and relevant customer journey.
- Explain boundary choices and possible neighboring alternatives.
Checkpoint: A scoped local-market plan.
Collect comparable businesses
- Gather accessible listings and official service descriptions.
- Resolve duplicate branches and record closed or uncertain status separately.
Checkpoint: A location registry.
Normalize offers and conditions
- Compare service scope, price units, hours, and booking requirements.
- Keep unavailable prices unknown and avoid treating a basic service as a premium equivalent.
Checkpoint: A comparable offer matrix.
Analyze experience themes
- Group review statements about access, waiting, service quality, or unmet needs.
- Preserve sample size and time period; do not infer overall market satisfaction.
Checkpoint: A qualified experience summary.
Identify hypotheses
- Connect observed gaps to possible business opportunities or operational changes.
- Separate a plausible idea from demonstrated demand.
Checkpoint: A local-validation shortlist.
Prepare field checks
- List which prices, access conditions, and customer needs should be verified directly.
- Deliver a concise brief with evidence and uncertainty.
Checkpoint: A practical local-research packet.
Decisions along the way
A business has several branches
Compare branch-specific conditions where available.
Reviews are old or sparse
Reduce confidence and prioritize direct verification.
A price lacks service details
Keep it incomparable until scope is clarified.
What you will produce
local-market-matrix.csv
CSVSupports fair local comparison.
Include: location_id · service · price_unit · hours · source_ref · date · unknowns
local-opportunity-brief.md
MarkdownGuides the next validation step.
Include: catchment · patterns · gaps · hypotheses · field_checks
Check the result
- Verify location and branch identity.
- Check service and price units are comparable.
- Separate review themes from population-level conclusions.
- Record dates and uncertain operating status.
When something goes wrong
Listings conflict on opening hours
Prefer current official evidence and mark unresolved conflicts.
Map search misses relevant alternatives
Use additional category terms and local knowledge supplied by the user.
The assistant calls a gap proven demand
Rewrite it as a hypothesis requiring field evidence.
A worked example
SYNTHETIC EXAMPLE · NOT A REPORTED BUSINESS RESULT
Request
Compare local repair services within a practical travel radius.
Inputs
Synthetic example. Synthetic A lists a basic repair for 30; B lists a premium package for 60; C has no current price.
Expected result
Synthetic expected result. Do not rank A cheapest for the same service without comparing scope. C remains price unknown and enters the field-check list.
Run a small pilot
Start small
One catchment and a small set of comparable services.
Record the baseline
Record manual research time and facts corrected through local checks.
Agree success criteria
Agree accuracy and decision usefulness before broader coverage.
Stop or revise
Stop commercial conclusions when core service or location facts cannot be verified.
Keep the scope clear
- Public reviews do not authorize profiling individual reviewers.
- Research does not authorize contacting businesses or making location commitments.
Check before using
Check data coverage and model assumptions; validate important conclusions with local evidence.
Business activities
- Research customers and markets
- Plan products and business changes
FROM A RECIPE TO YOUR WORKFLOW
Bring the company context together.
This workflow needs reliable inputs before it needs a better prompt. Moat8 Vault brings working information into a readable archive for the AI tools you use.
For this recipe: Geographic boundaries · Public business data · Customer-experience signals · Comparison areas
Start with one recurring task, agree which sources to use, and review the first result with your team.
Discuss this workflow