Shortlisted, Now What? How Secondary Markets Turn Retail Interest into Deals

Secondary markets are on a lot of retailer roadmaps right now. Many cities are investing in corridors, cleaning up data, and getting more intentional about recruitment.

The real friction shows up later in the process—when a retailer has narrowed down to a handful of places that all look viable and your city is one of them.

Same rough trade area. Similar incomes. Comparable anchors.

At that stage, the question for municipal teams becomes:

When a retailer has two or three realistic options in your region, what makes your city feel like the confident choice?

This article focuses on the parts of that decision you can influence directly: how clearly you tell your story, how easy you make execution feel, and how you show up as a long-term partner.

Understanding Your “Comparison Cities”

Even without a formal study, it helps to name the markets you’re most likely being measured against. That gives your team a shared frame of reference instead of guessing.

A simple internal exercise:

• Look at recent deals in your region
  • Where have grocers, fitness concepts, medical users, and value retailers opened in the last 3–5 years?
  • Which cities keep coming up in those announcements?
• Create a short peer list
  • Identify 2–4 cities with similar trade areas, household incomes, and regional roles.
  • Note where you’re stronger, comparable, or still catching up (growth, accessibility, anchors, development pipeline).

The goal here is to recognize that, for many brands, you’re already in a small comparison set—and to be intentional about where you can stand out within that group.

Competing Where You Can Move the Needle

You can’t change your population overnight. You can shape how your market shows up in a retailer’s decision process.

Three levers consistently matter in those tie-breaker moments.

1. Speed: Make the Path to “Yes” Visible

Retailers and developers need a realistic sense of how long things will take and what it will be like to work with you. When the process feels vague, risk goes up.

Practical ways to help:

• Designate a point person for retail and development projects
  • A named contact with phone and email, visible on your website and in materials.
• Share a simple process roadmap
  • One-page visual of the typical steps from initial inquiry through approvals and inspections.
  • Include timing ranges and decision points so internal teams can plan.
• Clarify where you can streamline
  • For example, coordinated pre-application meetings or bundled reviews in priority corridors.

The message you’re sending: your team understands the path, owns it, and will help projects navigate it.

2. Clarity: Tell a Retailer-Centered Data Story

Site teams are used to working with trade areas, spending, and competition. When municipal data stays at the “city profile” level, they have to do a lot of translation on their own.

It helps to have a concise “Retail Snapshot” ready to go that covers:

• Trade area definition
  • A 10–15 minute drive-time that reflects where customers actually come from.
• Core demographics and trends
  • Population, households, income, and growth within that drive-time—not just within city limits.
• Category demand
  • Gap/leakage views for everyday needs, food & beverage, and services tied to specific nodes.
• Competitive context
  • Key anchors, existing retailers in the same category or adjacent categories, and any known pipeline.

You’re aligning your story with the way retailers already view markets. That makes it easier for their real estate, analytics, and finance teams to plug your information directly into their process.

3. Support: Act Like a Long-Term Partner

When markets look similar on paper, the experience of working with a city becomes a meaningful differentiator. Teams look for signs that local partners will help them get to opening and beyond.

You can reinforce that confidence by:

• Coordinating internally on behalf of projects
  • Bringing planning, engineering, utilities, and economic development into the same conversation, instead of sending the retailer on a tour of departments.
• Connecting infrastructure and operations
  • Calling out funded or planned improvements that support specific sites—turn lanes, signal adjustments, parking changes, sidewalk connections, broadband, etc.
• Bringing community insight into the discussion
  • Sharing structured input on what residents say is missing, where they currently travel to shop, and how a new use could fit into that pattern.

These actions don’t guarantee a deal, but they often shift perceptions: from “another city on the list” to “a place where we’ll be able to work through issues constructively.”

Building a Practical Secondary-Market Playbook

Instead of starting from zero for each opportunity, many municipal teams benefit from a simple, reusable playbook. It doesn’t have to be elaborate; it just needs to give everyone the same baseline tools.

A pragmatic version can include four elements.

1. Priority Retail Categories

Use data and local knowledge to identify 4–6 categories where you see the most opportunity, such as:

• Daily needs (grocery, value general merchandise, medical, pharmacy)
• Food & beverage (fast casual, family dining, coffee)
• Services (fitness, health & wellness, childcare, pet care)

This gives focus to your outreach at conferences, in campaigns, and in one-to-one conversations.

2. Priority Sites and Corridors

For each key location, maintain a one-page summary that includes:

• Trade area map and core metrics
• Household and daytime population
• Category gaps relevant to that node
• Existing tenant mix and anchors
• Zoning, utilities, access, and visibility details
• Any planned or funded improvements that strengthen the location

Having these prepared means you can respond quickly and consistently when brokers or brands ask, “What do you have that might fit us?”

3. Reusable Pitch Deck Structure

A base deck saves time and keeps your story coherent. You can then tailor it to each retailer or category.

A straightforward structure:

1. Role in the region and overview of the trade area
2. Demographic and income profile, with a simple view of growth
3. Spending and leakage for the categories you’re targeting
4. Competitive landscape around the node or corridor
5. Priority sites and their readiness (zoning, access, infrastructure status)
6. Community voice—what residents say they’re leaving the area to find
7. Process and support—who’s involved, what the steps look like, and how you’ll work with them

This mirrors the way internal real estate decks are built, which makes it easier for your materials to be used inside the retailer’s organization.

4. Operating Norms for Retail Projects

Finally, it helps to agree internally on how you’ll handle these opportunities. That might include:

• Target response times for inquiries and information requests
• Who leads communication with prospects and who supports behind the scenes
• When and how you loop in council or senior leadership
• A simple way to capture lessons learned from wins and near-misses so future pursuits benefit

These norms help you deliver a consistent experience even when staff changes or multiple departments are involved.

In Action: Becoming the Safer Bet

Here’s a pattern that comes up frequently when a retailer is weighing similar secondary markets.

Two cities serve comparable trade areas, show solid demand for the category, and offer plausible sites on regional corridors.

One city provides:

• General citywide statistics and a zoning map
• Process details that live mostly in emails and verbal conversations
• Limited insight into how residents currently shop

The other city provides:

• A concise trade-area story focused on the specific node
• Clear, quantified demand for the category and a straightforward view of existing competitors
• One-page site summaries that show zoning, utilities, access, and planned improvements
• A named contact and a visual of the review and approval steps

In that scenario, the second city doesn’t “out-muscle” the first. It simply makes it easier for the retailer’s team to understand the opportunity, model it, and see the path to opening. That often becomes the deciding factor when sites and markets are otherwise close.

Making Tie-Breakers Work in Your Favor

For secondary cities, the work isn’t about chasing perfection. It’s about being ready when you are on the shortlist.

A practical next step could look like this:

• Audit your current materials from a retailer’s perspective: trade areas, category gaps, site summaries, and process clarity.
• Standardize a small set of tools—a snapshot template, one-pagers for key sites, and a base pitch deck.
• Align your internal team on who leads, how you respond, and how you support projects over time.

When you do those things consistently, you put your city in a stronger position every time a retailer has to choose between “a few good options.” Your story is clearer, your process feels more manageable, and your team shows up as a thoughtful partner—that’s often what turns a close call into a win.

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