Afferent Synapse

Data Sources & Definitions

Every metric we sell, exactly where it comes from, and how often it's refreshed, so you can decide with real information whether a one-time export or an ongoing subscription fits how you'll use it.

Retail Chain Locators

Store Location & Identity

Baseline
Know exactly which doors are open right now, before you plan around them.
Baseline tierNationwideRolling automated review

What this answers

  • Building an accurate universe of active doors before a distribution or media plan
  • Confirming a location is still open before routing field reps or creative spend
  • Getting a current address and phone number for outreach without a manual lookup

US Census & Demographics

Trade-Area Demographics

Mid-tier
Power trade-area targeting and store-level media plans with real household income and population data.
Mid-tierCensus tract levelAnnual restatement

What this answers

  • Targeting programmatic media by household income around specific doors
  • Prioritizing distribution or trade spend toward the highest-population trade areas
  • Building an affluence-weighted territory plan for a sales team

Daytime & Workplace Population

Mid-tier
See who's actually around a store during business hours, not just who lives nearby.
Mid-tierCensus tract levelAnnual restatement

What this answers

  • Evaluating a location's daytime foot-traffic potential separate from residential density
  • Distinguishing a commuter or office trade area from a purely residential one

USDA & Environmental Context

SNAP & WIC Program Authorization

Premium
Confirm which doors are authorized to accept SNAP and WIC before pitching program-specific placements.
Premium tierBi-weekly (SNAP)Partial coverage (WIC)

What this answers

  • Evaluating a retailer pitch that depends on SNAP/WIC-eligible doors
  • Scoping a program-specific placement or promotion to authorized stores only

EV Charging Infrastructure

Premium
Identify doors near EV charging infrastructure for EV-adjacent retail and partnership strategy.
Premium tierNationwideQuarterly refresh

What this answers

  • Scoping an EV-driver-adjacent product placement or partnership by store
  • Evaluating dwell-time opportunity near DC-fast charging locations

Food Access & Investment Zones

Premium
Flag doors sitting in food deserts or federally-designated Opportunity Zones for equity- and incentive-driven strategy.
Premium tierCensus tract levelAnnual restatement

What this answers

  • Supporting an equity- or access-driven distribution narrative with real designations
  • Identifying doors eligible for Opportunity Zone-linked investment incentives

Site-Selection Signals

Premium
Layer traffic, competition, crime, and health context onto any door for real site-selection diligence.
Premium tierNationwide (growing)Quarterly to annual

What this answers

  • Evaluating buyer pitches or new-door proposals by traffic and competitive density
  • Screening a territory for site-selection risk before committing trade spend
  • Layering health-prevalence context onto category planning (e.g. wellness, OTC)

Integration & Refresh Specs

How the automated refresh works

Store locations and status are reviewed on a rolling, automated basis. The system always checks whichever banners have gone longest without a review first, so nothing sits stale indefinitely. When a store is found to have opened or moved, its demographics, traffic, and site-selection data are refreshed automatically at the same time, using the latest data already on file for its area.

Separately, the underlying government and public datasets themselves (Census, USDA, CDC, Treasury) are re-pulled in full on the cadence shown in each dataset above, mostly annual, matching how often those sources actually publish new figures, since pulling an unchanged annual number more often wouldn't add any real freshness. A few sources refresh faster than that: Census demographics and EV charger data run quarterly, since charging stations in particular are added continuously by network operators, not on a yearly survey schedule; and crime data runs quarterly too, since the FBI republishes agency-level figures roughly monthly, so a full year of staleness would be too coarse.

Data refresh schedule

Every metric grouped by exactly when it updates. The automated cadences below run on their own, on a schedule, with nothing pending on our end. No metric here is waiting on someone to remember to click a button.

Weekly

Automated

Store openings, closures, and moves

Status & last-verified timestamp

SNAP authorization (all banners)

Pharmacy flag

Demographics, EV data, and site-selection signals for any store found open or moved that week

Continuous

Automated, event-driven

Competitive density

Road traffic (AADT)

Recomputed for an entire state the moment any store there opens, closes, or moves. Not on a timer, on the event itself.

Quarterly

Automated

Population, income, affluence, ethnicity

EV chargers: presence, count, networks

Crime index

Semi-annual

Automated

WIC authorization (12 states + DC)

Re-verified against each state's own vendor list twice a year, with nothing pending on our end. The remaining covered states (Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Jersey, Pennsylvania) keep their last-verified data but aren't on this automated cadence yet - Georgia blocks automated access outright, the rest are a planned follow-up.

Annual

Automated

Daytime population

Food desert designation

Opportunity Zone

Diabetes / obesity prevalence

Recreation site count & distance

One-time / manual

Not currently on a recurring schedule

Overture-matched phone numbers

Verified once against its source and needs a person to re-run it for a refresh, expected roughly annually. A store you've already purchased that shows a value here keeps it; a store that shows null hasn't been evaluated yet and stays null rather than being guessed at.

Data Source, Synchronization Cadence & Disclaimer

1. Data Provenance & Ingestion Cadence

(a) Third-Party Government Source: The API Direct Feed aggregates, formats, and serves public records derived from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) / Food and Nutrition Administration (FNA) SNAP Retailer Locator dataset.

(b) Synchronization Schedule: The Company undertakes commercially reasonable efforts to refresh its database on a recurring, automated basis following each newly published public dataset or feature service update released by the USDA/FNA. Public upstream updates typically occur on an approximately bi-weekly cadence; however, refresh timing for any individual record is not guaranteed to occur within a fixed number of days and may vary by banner and dataset.

2. Latency of Retailer Openings, Authorizations, and Closures

(a) Regulatory Processing Lag: Client acknowledges that inclusion of newly opened retail locations in the Direct Feed is contingent upon: (i) the retailer obtaining formal regulatory SNAP authorization from the USDA; and (ii) the USDA publishing the approved record in its subsequent public data release. This upstream authorization and publication cycle generally requires 30 to 60 business days (and up to 90 calendar days) from a retailer’s initial application or physical store opening.

(b) De-authorization & Closure Lag: Client acknowledges that store closures, license revocations, or corporate changes are subject to retailer self-reporting compliance and periodic administrative reviews by federal authorities. The Company does not guarantee real-time reflection of physical store closures.

3. “AS IS” Warranty Disclaimer & Limitation of Upstream Liability

(a) No Warranty of Immediate Accuracy: The API Direct Feed, datasets, and associated documentation are provided strictly “as is” and “as available.” The Company expressly disclaims all warranties, express, implied, or statutory, including without limitation warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy, completeness, timeliness, or non-infringement.

(b) Upstream Dependency: Under no circumstances shall the Company be held liable for delays, errors, omissions, downtime, or regulatory latency caused by the USDA, federal data systems, or individual retailer reporting defaults. The Company does not warrant that the data will be error-free or that every physical retail opening or closure will be reflected within a specific timeframe.

One-time purchase vs. subscription

Both give you the exact same data. The difference is what happens after checkout.

A one-time purchase is a snapshot as of your purchase date. It's accurate for that moment, but none of the refresh cycles above apply afterward. A store that closes next month, or a new annual Census release, won't be reflected in data you already downloaded.

A subscription keeps returning current data for as long as it's active, automatically incorporating every refresh described above, no need to track when a data cycle lands or to re-purchase to get it. A live subscription requires owning the static baseline snapshot for that banner or category first. If you don't already own it, your first checkout bundles it in automatically at a volume discount (15% off a full banner, 20% off a whole category), billed once at signup, and that copy is yours to keep even if you cancel later.

If your use case can work from a fixed point-in-time view, a one-time purchase is simple and does the job. If it depends on knowing about a closure, a new opening, or a data update without a manual re-check, a subscription is generally the better fit for that.

Compare pricing in the catalog →

Frequently asked questions

What is Afferent Synapse?

Afferent Synapse is a self-serve retail store location and demographic intelligence product, operated by 207 Analytix LLC. It combines verified store-locator data with Census, USDA, and NREL public datasets, sold by retail banner, category, or state.

Who is Afferent Synapse built for?

CPG brands planning retail distribution, trade-area targeting, or territory analysis, and marketing or media agencies building geotargeted campaigns or store-level media plans for retail and CPG clients.

What data sources does Afferent Synapse combine?

Store location and status come from each retailer's own store locator or the USDA SNAP retailer directory. Trade-area demographics come from the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey. Program authorization data comes from USDA Food and Nutrition Service (SNAP) and state WIC agencies. EV charger data comes from the U.S. Department of Energy's NREL Alternative Fuels Data Center. Premium tier adds road traffic (FHWA), food desert and Opportunity Zone designations (USDA/Treasury), crime index (FBI), and health prevalence data (CDC).

Can I buy data for just specific states instead of a whole banner?

Yes. Every banner can be purchased in full or scoped down to just the states you need, at the same per-store rate. You're not required to buy national coverage to get started.

Is this a one-time purchase or a subscription?

Both are available for every banner and category. A one-time purchase is a frozen snapshot as of the purchase date. A subscription keeps returning current data automatically as stores open, close, or move, and as the underlying government datasets are refreshed.

How current is the store location data?

Store locations and status are reviewed on a rolling, automated basis with weekly delta tracking for openings, closures, and relocations. See the refresh schedule above for exactly how each field updates.

What's the difference between the Baseline, Mid-tier, and Premium tiers?

Baseline is core store identity and location data. Mid-tier adds Census trade-area demographics (population, income, affluence, ethnicity). Premium adds program authorization (SNAP/WIC), EV charger data, and site-selection signals like traffic, competitive density, and crime index. Each tier includes everything in the tier below it.