Pokemon Go Is Driving Insane Amounts of Sales at Small Local Businesses

Yeah, in the middle of a big city, particularly one near a park/common congregating place, you might run into problems if you're competing with a spot that has two or three lures going off in close proximity. But lures don't last forever, and the landscape is different in the evening vs. in the morning vs. during lunch hour. Also weekends vs. weekdays. You can literally just watch the lures go up, and then dissipate as players come out and go away, and have different objectives in the game.

You don't have to actively play the game just to have an account and keep an eye on what's going on in your area, and business owners could place lures strategically when they think players might find them most useful.

This worked really well for an ice cream shop near the beach I went to recently. Lots of people walking by collecting Pokemon, and they were one of only a few shops within 40 meters (there were a lot of residences in the area). People who clearly were not at the beach to get ice cream basically swarmed the place -- they saw the lure and thought "Oh, actually, it would be nice to sit down for a while and have an ice cream cone, now that I think about it..."

Also, players can see the name of whoever set up the lure, so you can use your player name to advertise your business, and then post it on a physical sign outside, as well. I haven't seen that done, but it would be pretty cool.