Imagine youâre opening a new business. The first question you might ask is âHow many people live nearby?â But an equally important one is: âHow far will people actually travel to get to me?â
For some businessesâlike coffee shops or dry cleanersâcustomers usually wonât go more than a few minutes out of their way. For othersâlike furniture stores, medical clinics, or unique restaurantsâcustomers may drive half an hour or more.
Understanding customer travel distance (also called a trade area) is critical for site selection, marketing, and franchise territory mapping. Get it wrong, and you risk overestimating your customer baseâor worse, cannibalizing your own locations.
In this post, weâll explore the factors that determine how far customers travel, industry benchmarks, how to measure real-world patterns, and what businesses can do to align travel behavior with growth strategy.
Not all businesses are created equal when it comes to how far customers will drive. Several variables shape this behavior:
Convenience businesses (gas stations, coffee shops, dry cleaners) rely on quick access. Most customers wonât go more than 5â10 minutes.
Destination businesses (specialty retail, furniture stores, entertainment venues) draw people from farther away because they offer something unique.
Services (fitness clubs, medical offices, tutoring centers) varyâcustomers may drive farther if the service is high-value or scarce in the area.
As a general rule, the more often people use your business - the less distance theyâre willing to travel.
Daily: coffee shops, fast food, convenience stores â small radius.
Weekly: grocery stores, set down restaurant, fitness clubs â medium radius.
Monthly/occasionally: furniture, auto dealerships, medical specialists â large radius.
Customers often travel farther for higher-ticket or higher-value purchases. Driving 25 minutes for a $5 latte? Unlikely. Driving the same distance for a $1,200 mattress? Much more reasonable.
If there are five competitors closer to home, customers probably wonât travel farther unless your offering a superior product or value. On the other hand, in a market with fewer options, customers are more willing to drive.
When analyzing customer travel, businesses often use two approaches:
Radius (straight-line) distance: A simple circle around a locationâe.g., a 5-mile radius.
Drive-time trade areas: Boundaries based on how long it actually takes to drive to a location, considering roads and traffic.
Hereâs why drive-time matters more:
In rural areas, 10 miles might take 10 minutes. In a dense urban core, the same 10 miles could take 45 minutes.
Natural barriersârivers, highways, railroadsâcan limit access.
Customers think in terms of time, not miles. Most people say, âIâll drive 15 minutes,â not âIâll drive 8 miles.â
Modern franchise territory mapping tools (like Zors) use drive-time polygons instead of simple circles, giving businesses a far more realistic view of their customer base.
While every market is unique, research shows some general benchmarks:
Quick-Service Restaurants (QSRs): 5â10 minutes. Customers prioritize speed and convenience.
Casual Dining Restaurants: 10â20 minutes. A unique dining experience can justify a longer drive.
Fitness Clubs & Gyms: 10â15 minutes. People want proximity since they go multiple times a week.
Medical Clinics & Dental Offices: 15â30 minutes. Patients are willing to travel farther for trusted providers.
Specialty Retail (furniture, electronics, niche products): 20â40 minutes. Shoppers often plan these trips.
Professional Services (attorneys, accountants, consultants): 15â30 minutes, depending on expertise and scarcity.
These benchmarks are not hard rulesâbut theyâre a useful starting point when estimating potential trade areas.
Guessing how far customers will drive is risky. Instead, businesses can measure actual travel patterns:
Ask directly: âHow far did you travel today?â or âWhat ZIP code do you live in?â Small businesses often use this at checkout.
If your business has a loyalty program, you already know where customers live. This data can reveal average travel distances and high-density neighborhoods.
For online-to-offline businesses, Google Analytics shows where website visitors are located. Pair that with in-store check-ins or mobile GPS data to measure drive times.
Modern platforms use census data and drive-time algorithms to define trade areas. Franchisors can build territories with precise population counts inside 10-, 15-, or 20-minute drive polygons.
Understanding customer travel distance impacts nearly every business decision:
When scouting a new location, knowing the maximum distance customers will travel helps evaluate whether the surrounding population is large enough to sustain the business.
Instead of wasting ad spend targeting a wide area, businesses can concentrate marketing within their realistic trade area. For example, a coffee shop may target ads to customers within a 2â3 mile radius, while a furniture store targets 30-minute drive times.
Businesses expanding into multiple locations need to avoid cannibalization. By knowing travel behavior, they can place stores or franchises far enough apart to maximize coverage without stepping on each otherâs toes.
Even sophisticated companies can misjudge customer travel behavior. Here are some pitfalls to avoid:
Overestimating travel willingness: Assuming people will drive farther than they really will. This often leads to disappointing sales.
Using only radius mapping: A 5-mile circle looks good on a map but ignores real-world traffic and barriers.
Ignoring demographics: Travel behavior varies by age, income, and region. A suburban family might drive farther for a grocery run than a city dweller who prefers walking.
Not updating assumptions: Customer habits change over time. Remote work, for example, has shifted where and when people are willing to travel.
Knowing how far customers are willing to travel is a powerful starting pointâbut itâs not the whole story. A 15-minute drive radius might look great on a map, but people donât always follow neat circles when making real-world choices. Traffic patterns, natural barriers (like rivers or highways), and local shopping habits can all shift how customers actually behave.
Thatâs why many franchisors pair drive-time analysis with other data layers, such as:
Census Tracts đď¸ â Ideal for drilling into population demographics with precision. If you want to understand who lives within that 15-minute driveâincome levels, household size, age distributionâcensus tract data gives you the detail.
ZIP Codes đŹ â Useful when defining broader territories or when marketing efforts (like mailers or advertising) are distributed by ZIP. They may not perfectly match drive times, but they provide a clear and manageable way to define an area.
đ In practice, the best territory decisions often occur when you blend these approaches. For example, a franchisor might start with a 15-minute drive radius, then overlay census tracts to refine the population count if the franchise system needs clean, standardized boundaries.
The key takeaway? Drive time tells you how far people might go, but census tracts and ZIP codes tell you who they are and how to organize the market. Used together, these tools help franchisors build territories that are both fair and realistic.
At the end of the day, customers decide with their watches, not their odometers. A â15-minute trade areaâ means something different in rural Texas than in downtown Chicagoâbut in both cases, understanding that boundary is the difference between thriving and struggling.
For small businesses, knowing customer travel habits can guide smarter marketing. For franchisors, itâs the backbone of fair, scalable territory mapping. And for everyone, itâs a reminder that growth is less about how many people live nearby and more about how many are actually willing to come through the door.
At Zors, we help franchisors turn this insight into action. Our drive-time mapping tools use real-world data to define territories that reflect how customers really moveânot just circles on a map. You may not utilize the drive time lines, but visualizing data provides a layer of insight.
When you understand how far customers will travel, you stop guessing and start growing strategically.
đ Schedule a free personalized demo today or signup for a free trial!
Share:
