Business and places data
What the places around a business tell you: how many there are, chains and independents, ratings, openings and closures.
Cafe markets in Toronto, London and Sydney: what a new cafe owner can learnFrom 622 cafes within 10 km of central Toronto to 3,111 in London, mostly independent and well rated. What that means for opening a cafe, and how to read the figures.Business and places data · 2 November 2026 · 5 min readChains vs independents: what the market mix tells a newcomer, a supplier and a landlordThe share of chain branches in a market says who decides, who buys and how hard it is to get in. How to read it, with real city figures and the traps to avoid.Business and places data · 2 November 2026 · 5 min readDentists in Toronto, London and Sydney compared: counts, chains, ratings and openingsToronto lists the most dentists of the three, London the fewest, and ratings and recent openings differ too. The figures side by side, and what they can and cannot tell you.Business and places data · 2 November 2026 · 5 min readHow many pharmacies does a big city have, and what the count says about accessLondon lists 866 pharmacies within 10 km of the centre, Toronto 519, Sydney 346. Who runs them, how they are rated, where they are thin, and what that means.Business and places data · 2 November 2026 · 5 min readHow to clean a list of businesses: duplicates, closures, categories and missing positionsA business list rots: the same shop twice, places long closed, ten names for one category, rows with no position. How to fix each, by hand or with blocks that do it.Business and places data · 2 November 2026 · 5 min readHow to know when a new business opens near youWalking past, local news, hiring ads and place data each catch openings at a different moment. How to combine them, and how an AI employee can watch the map for you.Business and places data · 2 November 2026 · 5 min readHow to read ratings across a whole market, not just one shopA 4.4 is excellent for a supermarket and weak for a salon. How to judge a rating against its whole category and area, with real spreads from three cities.Business and places data · 2 November 2026 · 5 min readSpotting closed businesses early, and what each closure is worth to youA closure frees a unit, leaves customers looking for somewhere new and ends a supplier account. How to catch closures within days, and who should act on each.Business and places data · 2 November 2026 · 5 min readWhat POI data is, and what a business can actually do with itPOI data is a list of the places in an area, each with a type, a position and details. What it holds, what it leaves out, and the five jobs it does for a business.Business and places data · 2 November 2026 · 6 min read
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