How Roocation turns a location question into decision-ready evidence

Roocation turns a single location question — "is this address right for this business?" — into a structured, source-labelled report you can act on. It reads the external conditions around a point on the map: the demand, the competitors, the people nearby, the catchment, the access and the public reviews. It never looks inside a business at its own sales, costs or staff. This page walks through how a report comes together, from the first question to a confident decision.

Two ways to start

There are two ways into a report, and they run on exactly the same evidence and the same nine sections:

• Evaluate a location you're considering. You have a site in mind — a shopfront, a tenancy, a suburb — and you want to know what the surrounding conditions look like before you commit to a lease, a purchase or a fit-out.
• Review the location you already operate from. You're already trading and want an independent read of the external conditions around your address — how the competitor landscape, demand and catchment around you are shaping up today.

Whichever you choose, Roocation analyses the world around the address, not the business inside it. When you review a current location, the report describes external conditions only — it does not assess your own performance. Where your operating business can be identified in public listings, it is excluded from the competitor counts.

Three steps to a report

1. Choose your business type

Tell Roocation what you're running — a café, a studio, a clinic, a store, and so on — so the analysis focuses on the right category. Your business type decides which nearby businesses count as direct competitors and which are adjacent, and how much each of the six scored categories is weighted. If your exact type isn't listed, an "Other" option applies broader competitor matching so you can still get a useful read.

2. Enter a location and choose an analysis area

Add the address you're weighing up — or the one you already trade from — and choose an analysis area that suits the business and its local context. A walk-up café draws from a tight radius; a destination venue or a service people drive to reaches further. Choosing the right area is what keeps the catchment, demographics and competitor counts honest for your situation, rather than forcing every business into the same circle.

3. Review your report

Roocation assembles the evidence into nine sections, each with a plain-language summary and suggested next steps framed for the context you chose:

• Overview — the headline read on the location.
• Location Context — the setting and character around the address.
• Competition — the direct and adjacent businesses nearby, and where they cluster.
• Demand & Gaps — public search interest weighed against the supply we identify locally.
• Demographics — who lives nearby, from the ABS 2021 Census: age, income, households and tenure.
• Catchment — the residents and workers realistically within reach of the address.
• Access & Transport — how people actually get there, on foot, by car or by public transport.
• Reviews — public review patterns and recurring themes among nearby businesses.
• Report Summary — the findings drawn together, with what to verify next.

Six of these categories — demand, demographics, catchment, access, reviews and competition — are scored and weighted for your business type to produce a single 0–100 Opportunity Score. Every finding is labelled by source and carries a Data Confidence rating, so you can see how much weight to give it. The methodology explains how each section is built, and the glossary defines the terms.

What the Free Preview shows

Before you pay for anything, a Free Preview gives you a quick, rule-based read on a supported Australian address — enough to decide whether a full report is worth running. It returns a three-level status — Promising, Mixed or Highly Competitive — plus the headline signals behind it, such as how many comparable businesses are nearby, the average competitor rating, and the approximate number of residents in the area.

The exact 0–100 Opportunity Score and the full nine sections are part of the paid reports. You can see a complete sample report to view the full structure before you buy.

From preview to a paid report

Paid reports build on one another, so you only pay for the depth you need — and never twice for the same work:

• Snapshot gives you the exact 0–100 score, a basic breakdown, the direct-versus-adjacent competitor counts, and the data confidence and key limitations — enough for early screening.
• Full Report unlocks all nine sections, the complete competitor table, and PDF plus PowerPoint deliverables. Upgrading from a Snapshot costs only the difference.
• Compare & Decide puts up to three Full Reports side by side, ranks them on identical evidence, and adds a Decision Summary — for choosing between shortlisted locations, including your current one.

Payments already made within the eligible project count toward the Compare & Decide project total, so you do not pay twice for the same completed report. Reports are one-off and never renew. See pricing for the first-project and future-project prices.

Coverage is checked before you pay

Roocation is Australia-first, and how much public evidence exists varies by location and business type. Coverage is always confirmed before a paid report is generated, so you learn whether an address can be analysed reliably before any payment is taken.

A report organises public data to support your decision; it doesn't replace it. Visit the site at your intended trading hours, and keep lease, legal and financial checks as separate due diligence — the report tells you what to verify, not what to sign.