COVID-19 data tool becomes available to help retailers assess store locations

A software company has created a free tool to help retailers assess their store locations during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“So much data about the situation is pouring out from governments and health care organizations, but none of it is relevant to retailers,” said Pranav Tyagi, CEO of Tango, which creates software for retailers to perform integrated workplace management.

“We owe our business to retailers, and so we decided to pull together all that data to create the COVID-19 Retail Location Benchmark as a free tool that they can use to decide where and when they should deploy resources to resume normal operations,” Tyagi said.

The tool allows retailers across more than 70 segments--including clothing, convenience stores, restaurants, and sports and recreation--to get detailed views of their exposure compared to industry peers based on store locations in U.S. counties affected by COVID-19.

Using the tool, retailers can call up charts and graphs analyzing data on such things as death rates and unemployment rates that are affecting store viability in individual counties. 

“They can scan the country and pick out the areas where they are heavily impacted and the ones where they’re not affected as much,” Tyagi said.