Prior to the digital revolution, location data was explicit – it referred to fixed physical stores.
Today, location data matters because people check their phones before they walk into a store, as evidenced by 200% annual growth in “where to buy” and “near me” mobile queries since 2017 (Think with Google, 2019). Since the pandemic, growth in these location-focused queries spiked to 700%. This spike is on the back of surging “local” demand for local transport, local car valeting and an array of home services. On Amazon, 58% of total sales were by small and medium-sized businesses across the 1.9 million US businesses using Amazon as a marketplace (oom.com, 2021).
