- Agglomeration
- A set of municipalities forming a continuous living area around a core municipality; membership changes how municipal figures should be read.
- Average basket
- The average amount spent per customer per visit; multiplied by footfall, it rebuilds turnover.
- Average daily traffic
- The average number of vehicles or travellers counted per day on a road or in a station — the objective measure of flow.
- Break-even point
- The turnover at which the business stops losing money: fixed costs divided by the contribution margin ratio.
- Business survival rate
- The proportion of companies still active three or five years after being founded, published by sector of activity.
- Catchment area
- The territory a point of sale draws its customers from, usually divided into primary, secondary and tertiary zones.
- COICOP and the household budget survey
- The classification of consumption items, and the survey that measures the average monthly spending of a Swiss household on each of them.
- Commercial electricity tariff
- The price of electricity for a commercial profile, set by the grid operator and therefore varying from one municipality to the next.
- Commercial register
- The cantonal register in which companies are entered; for an LLC or a public limited company, entry is what brings them into existence.
- Commuters
- People who cross a municipal boundary to go to work; their balance measures a municipality's daytime custom.
- Employer's social security contributions
- All the contributions the employer owes on top of the gross salary: old-age and survivors' insurance, disability, loss of earnings, unemployment, occupational pension, accident, family allowances.
- NOGA
- General classification of economic activities: the official code that identifies what an establishment does in Switzerland.
- Postcode
- The Swiss postcode; it coincides with neither municipalities nor cantons.
- Prime (1A) location
- The category of a city's best retail addresses: maximum flow, maximum visibility, the highest rents.
- Rent per square metre
- The unit for comparing commercial premises, expressed in Switzerland in francs per square metre per month.
- Rent-to-turnover ratio
- Annual rent relative to turnover: the only measure that allows two locations to be compared.
- Retail density
- The number of inhabitants per establishment in a given activity — a saturation benchmark, not a verdict.
- Service charges
- The services linked to using the premises that are billed on top of the net rent; they are owed only if the lease expressly provides for them.
- STATENT
- Structural business statistics: the official census of establishments and jobs in Switzerland.
- Statistical hectare
- A 100-by-100-metre cell that serves as the finest mesh of official Swiss statistics.
- STATPOP
- Population and household statistics: the official source of Swiss demography, down to municipal and hectare level.
- ZEFIX
- The Swiss central business name index: the public register of incorporated entities, searchable online.
- Zoning designation
- The municipal zoning that determines which activities are allowed on a plot — the first check to make, before any lease.
The figures, canton by canton
Population, income, benchmark commercial rent, taxation and flows — official data, refreshed at every import.
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