ChainLocations provides curated location data for retail, restaurant and services chains across the U.S. and Canada. This comprehensive database, produced by ChainXY, offers geocoded location data for more than 6,039 chains, from single storefronts to companies with hundreds of locations. In addition to providing geographic coordinates for each location, the database offers the name and North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code for each chain. Location data are collected directly from retailer websites, which undergo a multi-step, rules-based geocoding and verification process to ensure their accuracy. ChainLocations is updated regularly to provide you with the most up-to-date resource of locations data.
Below are some additional resources linked for your reference.
Additional Resources
| VARIABLE | DESCRIPTION |
|---|---|
| StoreName | This is the name of the store provided by the chain. If this field is blank, the chain does not provide a specific name for that location. |
| StoreNumber | The number of stores operated by a chain. Store numbers are only provided when ChainXY can verify that the number is the true public identifier of a chain, and it is unlikely to change between updates. These values can be used when referring to a location within your organization but should be used with caution. |
| ChainID+ChainName | ChainXY's internal identifier for the chain, along with its business name. The ChainID value remains constant between updates. On occasion, ChainXY will generate a new ChainID when two chains merge into one chain in ChainXY (e.g. 'Costco Canada' gets merged into 'Costco USA,' and 'Costco USA' gets renamed to 'Costco'). The name of the chain can change on occasion and should never be used as a key identifier for a chain. |
| ChainStatus |
‘Closed’ refers to chains that will no longer be updated as either their website is no longer live, or the chain has closed. ‘Deprecated’ refers to Chains which will likely be removed entirely from ChainLocations in the proceeding months. ‘Distributor’ chains are ones that are not the brick-and-mortar locations of a particular brand (e.g. The 80k stores that sell Nike products, but aren’t a Nike branded outlet). These go through a simpler QA process (without human validation) and may not be updated as frequently. 'POI' points of interest that are used as background for mapping. These are not QA'd beyond some basic checks, and are (generally) not geocoded at all. |
| Label | The label is a simplified version of the ChainName field. This field is safe to use as a label when creating map products or using the data in internal reports. For example, ChainXY may list 'McDonald's (country name)' in a number of different countries, but the label will remain consistent between all of the McDonalds locations for the various countries. |
| ParentChainID+ParentChainName | ChainXY will often attempt to group chains together when they are operated by a single parent company. For example, Hilton Hotels operates 17 different brands of hotels. Each of those 17 brands exists as a distinct chain in ChainLocations, but will reference 'Hilton Hotels' as its ParentChain. |
| Address1, Address2 | The street address of the particular location. ChainXY does its best to ensure that it is as complete as possible, but often the source of those addresses may not satisfy ChainXY's quality standards and so it is unable to interpret each address component into separate fields. |
| City | The city of a particular location. |
| PostalCode | The postal code of the particular location should be used as a guide and may not be completely accurate. |
| State | For locations in Canada and the United States, the States are generally an abbreviated form of the full name of the state. For locations outside Canada and the United States they vary in formatting and accuracy, as regions within countries are not always used in postal addressing. It should not be relied on for consistency between updates. Using the 'AdminLevel' fields detailed below would be the best option if that is a requirement. |
| Country | ChainXY attempts to provide a clean, full-text version of a chain's country location, based on what was provided by the source. It should not be relied on for consistency between updates. Using the 'AdminLevel' fields detailed below would be the best option if that is a requirement. |
| PhoneNumber | The phone number is only populated if it is provided from the source. North American numbers will be formatted as (nnn) nnn-nnnn; international numbers will be prepended with the country code and formatted specifically for each country. |
| Closed | If the location is still present on the source website, but has some sort of designation that it is closed, this field will be populated with 'True'. Note that this field is not used when a location disappears from a website or reported to ChainXY as closed by a user. Closed location are available when downloading archived reports. |
| ComingSoon | If the location is present on the source website, but has some sort of designation that it is not yet open, this field will be populated with 'True.' |
| StoreType | This field is used to differentiate different store types present within one particular chain. For example, Target operates standard Target, SuperTarget and TargetExpress chains. |
| DistributorName | When the locations found within a particular ChainXY chain are those of a distributor, this field will be populated. For example, Clairins (makeup) operates retail locations and sells its products in other retailers' stores. The Clairins retail stores will not have a value in DistributorName, but the locations that sell Clairins products (other department stores for example), would have the name of that location listed here. |
| StoreHours | Store hours are generally provided as an 'extra;' there are no assurances of accuracy or completeness. |
| OtherFields | Any other relevant details about a location will be listed here. This may include services offered within that location or the opening date of that location (rare). |
| AdditionalAttributes | Certain chains have additional attributes that get passed through in a structured format (look at Kroger brands for example). |
| Latitude + Longitude | The LatLong provided are ones that have gone through ChainXY's QA process. |
| GeoAccuracy | Generally, they are the direct result from the geocoder used, prepended with an internal code to help ChainXY identify what step in its process was used to approve that geocode. You'll also see 'CHAIN' when the location coming from the chain has been used as the geocode because it was the best available option. On occasion, 'Exact' will appear in this field when the source Lat/Longs are deemed to be very good. 'Suggestion' is used when a ChainXY subscriber provided a suggestion for location improvement. |
| HashID | The HashID is the internal identifier of that particular location from ChainXY. |
| LastUpdate | The date which this record was last updated in ChainLocations. |
| FirstAppeared | The first appeared date references when the specific location first appeared in ChainXY's database. Generally, it is populated when it appeared in ChainLocations after March 1, 2018. If the chain is new in ChainLocations, the date will not be populated with the first update - only subsequent updates will see the field populated. |
| LastSeen | The date which this record was last seen in ChainLocations. In most downloads this is the same as LastUpdate, but in reports like our Change-Over-Time report, it will often not be the LastUpdate date. |
| SIC + NAICS | The codes associated with the chain. |
| PrimaryCategory | The primary category attached to a chain is an attempt to pick a singular category that best represents a chain. These may change over time through an effort to organize chains in a more efficient way. |
| Categories | Semi-Colon (;) separated categories assigned to the chain by ChainXY. Appended to each location is some additional geographic data. |
| AdminLevel1CodeName+Label | Country Code and Name |
| AdminLevel2CodeName+Label | State/Province Code and Name |
| AdminLevel3CodeName+Label |
Canada: Census Metropolitan Area United States: Core-based statistical area |
| AdminLevel4CodeName+Label | United States: County |
| AdminLevel5CodeName+Label |
United States: DMA's DMA's cannot be used in any external publications based on ChainXY data |