HOW WE READ THE MARKET
Here's what we read. Here's what we don't.
Every number on Mercanta's map traces back to open, licensed data anyone can inspect. This page explains where it comes from, how we weigh it, and — honestly — what it can't yet see.
DATA SOURCES
Open data. Resale-clean. Nothing scraped.
Mercanta reads from two sources — both public and licensed, both fit for commercial use, and both transparent enough that you can inspect them yourself.
Statistics Canada
Census data · resale-clean
Demographic and economic data at the FSA (forward sortation area) level — the first three characters of your postal code. We read household income, age distribution, education levels, and population density. All open under the Statistics Canada Open Licence.
Foursquare
Points of Interest · licensed
Verified business location data — what's open, where, and in what category. We use this to map competitor density and supply gaps at the FSA level. Licensed for commercial use through the Foursquare Places API.
Both sources are aggregated to the FSA level — three characters of a postal code, roughly 8,000 households. No individual data. No scraping. No proprietary feeds that can disappear overnight.
THE FOUR FACTORS
What goes into an opportunity score.
Mercanta weighs four factors, pulled entirely from open data. Each one is a signal an operator already thinks about — we just read them systematically, across every neighbourhood, all at once.
1. Affluence
Median household income and discretionary spending capacity in the catchment. For boutique fitness, a higher-income area means a higher ceiling on what you can charge per member per month.
2. Supply gap
How many competing studios serve that FSA relative to the population that fits your member profile. A thin supply market with rising demand is the strongest opening signal on the map.
3. Prime-age population
The concentration of adults aged 25–54 — the core fitness membership band — living within the catchment. More people in this band means a larger addressable member base.
4. Education
The proportion of adults with post-secondary credentials. Higher education correlates with higher fitness participation rates and willingness to pay a premium for boutique concepts.
WHAT THE SCORE MEANS
A compass, not a guarantee.
The opportunity score Mercanta gives you is directional: it tells you which neighbourhoods are worth a site visit and which you can skip. A score of 82 doesn't mean "this location will succeed" — it means "this neighbourhood has the strongest demographic and supply-side signal in your region right now."
Think of it as the first stage of your own diligence. The score surfaces the few candidates worth your time. The site visit, the lease negotiation, the landlord read — those are still yours. Mercanta shortens the search; it doesn't replace the call.
Every score comes with a plain-english verdict — Open here. Hold. Pass for now. — so you know at a glance what the data is saying about the timing.
WHAT WE CAN'T SEE YET
Honest limitations — we'd rather you know now than find out later.
Here's what the model doesn't read.
Every tool has blind spots. Here are Mercanta's, stated plainly:
Rent data. We don't read what landlords are asking for commercial leases. A strong neighbourhood at the wrong rent is a bad deal — you'll need to price the space yourself.
Foot traffic. We don't read pedestrian counts or pass-by volume. A high-opportunity cell on a sleepy side street is different from one on a main road — site visits catch this.
Landlord sentiment. We don't know if the landlord is difficult, if the space has been empty for a reason, or if a development is planned next door. These are the human factors a map can't read.
Building-specific conditions. Fit-out costs, zoning restrictions, parking availability — none of this is in the model. Mercanta tells you where to look; it doesn't replace the walk-through.
If a factor matters to your decision and it's not listed above as something we read, assume we don't read it yet. We'd rather be honest than add noise to the signal.
PRIVACY
Aggregated, not individual.
All Mercanta data is aggregated to the FSA level — roughly 8,000 households per zone. We never read, store, or surface individual-level data. No personal information flows through the model.
Mercanta operates under Canadian privacy law (PIPEDA). Our data handling is designed from the ground up to meet financial-services-level aggregation standards — the same discipline that institutional market-intelligence firms apply to their own models.
We don't sell data. We don't share it. We don't scrape it. Everything we read is either publicly available under open licence or licensed transparently — and we list both sources on this page.
Read your market when the map goes live.
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