Summit County launches free market research tool for small businesses

Summit County has put a new business-planning tool in the hands of local operators for free, and the payoff could be as concrete as a better lease decision or a smarter marketing budget. SizeUp Summit County gives small businesses market research and business intelligence that larger companies often buy, including data on competitors, customers and market conditions.

County officials say the platform is meant to level the playing field for owners trying to decide where to open, how to market and which customers they are missing. On Summit County’s Small Business Insights page, the tool is described as small-business intelligence, market analysis and data visualization for businesses of all sizes. Users can measure performance, find new customers and suppliers, and optimize and target marketing.

That matters in a county where seasonal demand, high rents and competition from larger resort and chain brands can make a bad location decision expensive. For a café in Park City, a retailer in Kimball Junction or a service business anywhere in Summit County, the tool can help answer basic questions before money is spent: who is already selling nearby, how much demand is in the area, and whether the customer base is growing or shrinking.

The launch also fits a broader economic-development strategy that Summit County says is aimed at building a sustainable, high-performance economy with better opportunities, broader job choices and higher wages and family incomes. The county’s BEAR program, short for Business Expansion and Retention, already relies on business outreach and visitation to identify systemic problems. SizeUp gives that effort a more data-heavy edge.

Summit County already publishes a wide set of community profile and market-data PDFs, including business summaries, retail market-place profiles, retail market potential, demographic and income profiles, housing profiles and inflow-outflow reports. SizeUp appears to package some of that information into a more usable, on-demand format for owners who do not have the time or staff to pull together their own analysis.

The Park City Chamber of Commerce has also added SizeUp Summit County to its Small Business Toolkit, describing it as a resource with guides, insights and planning tools to help businesses start, manage and grow. The county is pairing that with a separate Small Business Grant Program funded through the state’s Rural County Grant Program, established under Utah code 17-54-101 and effective July 1, 2020.

That mix of analytics and direct aid shows how Summit County is trying to support small business from more than one angle. The bigger test now is whether the county can show that a free tool, paid for by public investment, leads to more openings, better retention and stronger local sales in a county economy that depends heavily on visitors but still needs year-round businesses to survive.