Anyone can pull a dashboard. But the intelligence that actually decides a retail real estate deal — whether a store will hit its number, whether an anchor is as strong as it looks on paper — still comes from walking the store.

And almost nobody does it anymore.

In this episode, host Mike Law sits down with Kevin Bissell from CRE360 Partners to break down field research and store casing: the unglamorous, boots-on-the-ground work behind the most accurate sales forecasts in the business — and why the firms that skip it keep getting burned.

In this episode:

• The gap between what a dashboard shows you and what you learn standing inside the store — and why that gap separates a good forecast from a bad one.
• Why a store can rank top-10% in foot traffic and bottom-10% in actual sales — the basket-size problem that mobile-location data keeps getting wrong.
• How a single store manager can swing a location's volume 20% in either direction — and why that never shows up in the numbers.
• What Kevin is actually doing during a 10–15 minute walk through a store, and how it tells him whether it's a strong, average, or weak performer.
• Where AI and modeling stop: the tools can get a forecast most of the way there in minutes, but the last mile still takes someone who's been in the building.

About the guest
Kevin Bissell is SVP of Real Estate Research at CRE360 Partners, with decades in grocery and retail research — including leading research for one of the country's largest retail REITs and a top national grocery-research firm. He's built sales forecasts and market studies for retailers, landlords, developers, and municipalities across all 50 states, much of it grounded in the fieldwork most firms no longer do.

About the show
The Ground Truth is a podcast for retail real estate operators, executives, and decision-makers. New episodes every two weeks. Hosted by Mike Law.

Sponsored by CRE360 Partners — a retail real estate research and advisory firm helping retailers, landlords, and municipalities make better expansion and leasing decisions.