Editorial method · September 28, 2026
How the Panama census is built
A brand enters the census when a source shows it has at least one unit open in Panama. That is the inclusion rule, and it is a rule about what a source shows on the date it was read, not a visit to the store. Every field carries a provenance tag and a date, unknown stays unknown, and no profile is certified. Today the census holds 492 published profiles and 0 commercial verification seals.
That last number is the point. A directory that calls brands «verified» without saying what was checked is selling a feeling. This page says what is checked, what is not, and who is responsible for the difference.
What qualifies a brand
One rule decides inclusion: at least one unit operating in Panama, shown by a source we can read. Appearing in someone else's directory, in a press release about future plans or on a map of third-party listings is not operating. Brands that have announced an arrival without an open unit go to a separate register, the Expansion Radar, and not to the census.
The unit is what counts, not the sign. A shop that sells a brand is not a unit of that brand: a multi-brand store earns its own profile and gives no units to the labels it stocks.
What the rule does not do is promise that every profile is a verified open shop today. There are 486 profiles with a published unit count; the remaining 6 document the brand operating here without a count, because no source publishes one. A profile also keeps the date its unit figure was read, which for a handful of long-established brands is older than the current edition. The honest description of the corpus is therefore published profiles documenting brand presence, and that is the wording used throughout these pages.
The distinction that organizes everything
Franchise, license, distribution, or the company itself
The contractual link is assigned only when a source names the third party. Where no source does, the field says so rather than guessing.
| Link | Profiles | What it means here |
|---|---|---|
| Franchise | 214 | A third party operates under a franchise agreement with the brand |
| License | 21 | Rights to use the brand without the full franchise system |
| Distribution | 25 | An authorized distributor with stores under the brand's name |
| Company-owned, Panamanian chain | 164 | A Panamanian company running its own stores. Documented, but not a franchise, and kept in its own section |
| Not yet determined | 68 | The brand operates here, but no source names the contract. The profile says that plainly |
Foreign companies that run their own stores in Panama are excluded from the census and listed, with the reason, on the Spanish exclusions page. A subsidiary is not a franchisee.
Counting units
Each count carries a qualifier and a provenance tag: exact, more than, or approximate; from the brand's own source, from a third party, or calculated by us with the method stated. A landlord directory and a brand's own store locator often disagree, and when they do the profile says which one it followed and why.
1,638 units are recorded across the directory, from 1,393 cited sources.
Unknown is a value
Fields the brand does not publish stay empty and are shown as «not disclosed». We do not convert a figure from another country, average a region or infer a range. 324 of the 328 directory profiles publish no investment figure for Panama, and that absence is itself information.
The one editorial marker we use
Document Review
Document Review is the English name for the editorial note that 18 profiles carry, published in Spanish as «Documentación examinada». It records that PanaFranquicias read a named document, on a stated date, to a stated extent.
| It asserts | It does not assert |
|---|---|
| That the named document was read, on the date shown | That the brand supplied, confirmed or reviewed anything |
| What was looked for inside it, in a written scope | That the document's contents are true, complete or still current |
| Which of the profile's sources correspond to that reading | Certification, approval, endorsement, financial validation or any guarantee |
It is deliberately plain: no color, no icon, no badge shape. It does not expire, because a reading happened on a date and stays happened. The list of profiles that may carry it is closed at 18, lives in the codebase, and the build fails if a profile adopts it on its own, if the date, scope or sources are missing, or if the scope uses a word that suggests endorsement.
5 profiles that previously carried a seal do not carry this marker: they have no written documentary scope, so there is nothing to publish. They remain in the census with their sources intact.
What stops editorial review becoming an endorsement
- The four commercial seals are defined publicly and granted only after a brand claims its profile through an official channel. None is active: the count is 0.
- The content schema refuses to compile a seal without a verified claim and its own date, so the rule cannot be bypassed by editing a file.
- An automated check reads the published HTML and fails if a profile shows a marker it is not authorized to show.
- Advertising and editorial are separated: sponsored placements are labelled and do not change the order, the fields or the sources of any profile.
Correcting a profile
Corrections need evidence: a document, a page, a dated statement. We check it against the source, amend the profile and record the change with its date, keeping the editorial history rather than quietly rewriting it.
Corrections are answered within five business days. A brand that wants to manage its profile can claim it; claiming is free and does not make the profile «verified».
Reading further
The full methodology is written in Spanish and is considerably longer than this page: every rule there carries the case that produced it, with brand and date.
- Full methodology — Spanish
- Document Review, defined — Spanish
- The four commercial seals and their definitions — Spanish
- Brands checked and left out, with the reason — Spanish
- Source register — Spanish
Editorial responsibility: Bautista Quintero, administrative manager and editor, Torre de las Americas, Piso 15, Ciudad de Panama, Panama.