The population in Germany is getting older and older on average. In this aging society, many people fortunately live in good health, yet age inevitably brings with it some discomforts with it. This trend is likely to also the market for stairlifts should also benefit from this trend.
A case for Location Intelligence in the form of a multi-criteria analysis: Potential areas can be identified by combining relevant market information.
Stairlift: A question of building type
Already today, every second person in Germany is older than 45, and every fifth person is 67 or older, according to DESTATIS shows. Not all older people can or want to live in apartments suitable for senior citizens; many prefer their own little house even in old age - for understandable reasons.
A stair elevator, or more precisely an inclined stair elevator, can be a great help when living on several floors. From the point of view of individual residential units, this is most likely to apply to the building types of detached and semi-detached houses and terraced and semi-detached houses. The typology of building characteristics is available in Nexiga's data portfolio for buildings, in addition to, for example, multi-family houses or apartment blocks. From the point of view of the stairlift manufacturers, areas with many elderly people and many buildings of these types are therefore in principle a potential sales area as a first approximation.
According to historical research a certain Henry VIII, King of England from 1509 to 1547, is said to have been the first owner of an early type of stair lift. As a king, he certainly afforded such an aid without any problems. The modern version was developed in the 1920s. Nowadays, the investment for the purchase and installation of a stairlift is not insignificant, costing up to 25,000 EUR. However, there is the possibility of financial assistance, so that the purchasing power of households does not necessarily have to be an important factor in the search for potential areas.
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Discover potential areas
How can one now make an initial estimate of potential by combining different market data? First, the geographic analysis level is defined. For a nationwide analysis, for example, the 5-digit postal code areas (Zip code) are suitable. Of these, there are approximately 8,200 geographic units. A multi-criteria analysis is then used to evaluate the individual Zip code by combining several criteria (market data), optionally with different weighting.
Taking the potential for stair lifts as an example, a score value can be calculated that indicates how strongly seniors as well as certain building types are represented in a Zip code . For this purpose, for example, the proportion of the population over 75 years of age and the number of buildings of the type detached or semi-detached house as well as terraced or semi-detached house in combination are taken into account. If it is known from the previous paragraphs that the product is predominantly used in a certain type of building, this can be given a higher weighting for the analysis. Optionally, other parameters such as purchasing power can also be taken into account.
In this classic multi-criteria analysis, the criteria are weighted and linked linearly. The weighting values add up to 1. The result is a score between 0 and 100, where 100 means that the geographical unit has the maximum proficiency in all criteria. As a rule, this value is not reached.
Our map (PDF) shows an example of the score for the potential of stairlifts. The Zip code-areas are shown in the map classified by the level of the score value, dark blue colored areas show the highest values.
The top areas are often found in the environs of larger cities, but also in some less urbanized regions. It should be borne in mind that absolute figures were combined here, meaning that Zip code areas with more inhabitants and buildings tend to receive higher score values.