What does 12oz do? Could you briefly explain your daily work within the company?

12oz is a company founded in 2015 in Milan that combines the speed of a traditional Italian bar with modern tastes and a dynamic lifestyle, serving 50% of beverages in under 30 seconds. Fabrizio Frombola, as Business Development Director, is responsible for national and international development. Specifically, he focuses on creating and implementing the brand's development strategy, searching for and negotiating new real estate deals, analyzing the market to identify growth opportunities, and ensuring the economic and profitable growth of the franchises.

‍Could you briefly describe the development and expansion project you initiated with 12oz? What are your short and medium-term goals?

Fabrizio Frombola: I have been part of 12oz since September 2023, managing development and expansion both directly in major cities like Rome, Florence, and Milan, where we already have 11 stores, and through franchising in secondary Italian cities. To date, we have 30 stores in Italy, divided between 24 directly managed and 6 franchised with two industry players. The goal for 2024 is to develop our network of stores and implement an expansion strategy, with 15 openings ideally divided between 5-6 direct and 8-9 franchised.

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Could you tell us in 3-4 words what contribution location data has made to your daily work at 12oz and how you see it reflected today?

The coffee shop sector is very complex because you cannot afford to choose secondary locations. Everything is tied to foot traffic and pedestrian flow: the store's performance depends on this variable. Choosing the best location greatly influences the success or failure of a new opening.With MyTraffic, I can select locations with higher traffic and, thanks to the analysis of weekly and daily flows, choose locations suitable for our business. Our interest is mainly in the mornings, not the evenings, so we exclude nighttime areas since our stores are open from 7 AM to 8 PM, and demand generally drops after 5 PM. Therefore, we are interested in locations with high morning flow, partly during lunch, and in the central afternoon hours. I use the data to share information with people proposing potential locations to us. When receiving proposals for potential locations, I analyze and compare them.The data facilitates and helps make decisions when considered along with other factors.

What challenges is your company facing, and how does location analysis help you solve them?

I deal with two aspects: finding franchisees and searching for locations to open new stores. Often, it is challenging to match the two. It's difficult to find locations with adequate flow, located in high-traffic areas, and another challenge is administrative, related to limited licenses for food and beverage activities. Rental rates are very high, for example, in Florence, and opening a coffee shop requires a significant initial investment. With MyTraffic, I know where to focus my search and which streets to maximize efforts to find locations; the difficulty is finding available spaces.The Heatmap helps me a lot—especially in a city or area of a city I have never explored.

The heatmap analysis is the one I use the most when evaluating cities I don't know. For example, Como, a city we are exploring, and even though it's a tourist city famous worldwide, the flows are often concentrated in certain months rather than weekends, so you need a location that can work during the week with locals and do important work on weekends.

Why did you choose MyTraffic as a data provider?

When I joined the company, there was no geomarketing platform. I chose MyTraffic because I am interested in flows and foot traffic. Additionally, with the monthly update, I don't read outdated data but have updated information.

Can you share an example of where MyTraffic helped you in your decisions?

In the development of directly managed stores, saving time in the search for locations, I can immediately focus on the most interesting locations for us and discard those that are not optimal for us. In expansion strategies to select and identify locations to visit and open them faster, reducing timeframes and being quicker on the market. The marketing team uses the platform to evaluate the existing store network and, through the data, better undertake and develop targeted campaigns.

How did 12oz operate before using location data? Would you go back to that model without location data? Why?

Before, there was no tool; the choice of new locations was guided by "gut feeling", without data. I asked to implement a geomarketing platform to remove the subjective element and have objective information to base decisions on.

What are the next steps in your collaboration with MyTraffic?

To use the platform more extensively to better understand other dynamics, not only exploiting it for development but also for other activities. For example, in the coming months, I want to use the tool to renegotiate existing contracts, seeing how foot traffic has changed over the years compared to when we signed the location. Another activity we want to implement concerns organizing staff in stores based on foot traffic and better understanding peaks.