Improving Retail Performance with Location Analytics

     With the economy in constant flux, retailers must stay in tune with the ever-changing demands of consumers and keep up to date on the status of their competitors in order to have a healthy and successful business.  With the state that the current market is in, even one unsuccessful store is one too many for a chain to be successful.  Thus, when deciding whether or not to move into a new location, several factors must be considered, such as if your store is in the right market with the right products for that demographical area or if there is enough sales opportunity to be able to compete against competitors and to cater to changes in consumer demands.  ArcGIS (a software) is a great tool for retailers to analyze these factors as it can be used to combine relevant data in maps and charts, helping the retailer to make decisions that would otherwise would be more difficult to make.  For example, Nike used GIS software to visualize where to distribute their products based on demographics, sales history, and various other factors (such as locations of schools with competitive sports teams).  

Another example is from 2008, when a barbecue restaurant closed just off Interstate 10 in Redlands, California.  The Redlands Chamber of Commerce turned to Esri, a company that utilizes GIS, for help in filling the empty lot where the barbecue restaurant once stood.  Ric Holderbaum, real estate director for the Dussin Group, expressed an interest that the Dussin Group was looking at Redlands as a possible new location for a new Old Spaghetti Factory restaurant.  Esri used Business Analyst Online to illustrate geographic data relevant to the Dussin Group.  This geographic data combined detailed income, age profiles, retail goods, and service expenditures for the area within a five-minute drive time around the location of the vacant restaurant.  The resulting data showed that a large percentage of the population fit into the demographic profile of the customers that the Old Spaghetti Factory usually serves.  Also, the fact that the location was right next to the highway meant that the location was exposed to more than 250,000 motorists every day.  The Old Spaghetti Factory opened there in December of 2009, and it has been very successful.  GIS software is very useful for a variety of reasons, one of which is the variety of things it can be used for.  It can be used to combine gathered data into an easy to understand map/image, making decisions based upon the information it reveals that much easier. 

http://www.esri.com/library/ebooks/improving-retail-performance.pdf

Improving Retail Performance with Location Analytics. (2012, October 1). Retrieved January 27, 2015, from http://www.esri.com/library/ebooks/improving-retail-performance.pdf