What is retail location defined as?
The physical and/or virtual space that a retailer inhabits in order to present its value proposition and provide an opportunity for its target market to access its merchandise and connect with brand values and associations (Ennis 2016)
What are the things location decisions are made on?
- Floor space - chain rationalisation
- performance assessment -store repositioning
- localisation of assortment
What are the three types of location variety?
1) Solus/free standing
2) Unplanned shopping centtre
3) Planned shopping centre
What is a solus/free standing shop and what are the disadv?
- This is a stand alone shop thats away from other shopping centres
- Examples include DIY and furniture stores
- Disad is that the retailer can’t rely on a ‘centre’ to attract customers and so has to take promotions on on their own
- Planning permission may also be hard to find
What is a unplanned shopping centre ?
- typically include the high street or central business districts in well established city centres
- Relies on customer traffic generated by other traffic including business and leisure
What is a planned shopping centre?
- This has been deliberately designed and developed for retail use
- designed to serve a specific demographic segment
- e.g trafford centre
According to Bowlby et al 1984, what is the ideal location sequence?
1) Search - The identification of geographical areas that may have potential for new outlets
2) Viability - Finding the best site available within these areas and forecasting the potential turnover from these
3) Micro- examination of all the features of a site that a relevant to the potential stores performance
what is meant by the key checklist criteria?
- Retailers have developed detailed checklists of the factors to be considered when evaluating potential sites
- It attempts to identify the most important locational factors for the success of the retail store, usually based on previous experience and/or judgement of retail managers
Who created one of the most detailed checklists?
- Was created over 40 yrs ago by nelson (1958)
- Comprising 8 categories and 36 specific areas of evaluation
What are some examples of things on a checklist?
Competition - Size, number and type of competing stores and their location to your proposed store
Sustainability
Strength on interception - The ability to intercept customers as they move from place to place within the centres e.g those located close to popular routes such as between car parks, railway stations etc are likely to have a high chance of interception
What is the reference from Brown 1991 on shoppers visiting stores?
- Shoppers are 35% more likely to visit stores that were similar than dissimilar
What does ‘population’ mean in terms of the site checklist?
- Population is not only the most important determinant of store viability it also suggests the stores size is best suited to the specific location (Lord and Lunaregan 1999)
- Looks are the spending power in the area, housing density, age, type of house (e.g new houses may attract DIY store)
What can maps be used in regards to getting info on customers?
- Home addresses usually by getting post codes during savers, can also be done by reading license plates
- Access routes can be depicted and different drive times from different areas
- ## Valuable estimates of store penetration
How can retailers use mapping techniques?
- Allows for before and after data to be seen in regards to changes in competition, promotional strategies
What new micro-isochrones?
- At the location evaluation stage, these can be mapped around the prospective site, showing relevant drive- bounds and can see the closeness in terms of driving of competition
What are goad plans?
This is a birds eye view of a retail location
- Shows the detailed shape and locations of over 325000 outlets in 1100 UK shopping areas
- Updates by a team of surveyors every 1-2 years
What info do goad plans provide ?
- Street names and numbers
- One- way streets
- bus stops
- pedestrians stopping etc
What do Geodemographics provide a means for?
- They provide a means to classify people by neighbourhood
- Links people to where they live based on established clustering techniques
What are the primary research techniques used to collect data on locational positioning?
- Specific studies at individual outlets, typically questionnaire based
- These are flexible but small scale and also time consuming
What are the secondary techniques used to collect data?
- Gov sources e.g population census or a general household survey
- Non gov - Market research, trade/ academic publications, the press , MINTEL
What is the MOSAIC system?
This uses geographical information systems (GIS) and represents a fusion of several data sources
- Defines 12 broad groups and 52 more specific types of neighbourhood
- Every postcode is defined in terms of a MOSAIC group and type with a postcode on average covering 14.5 postcodes
What are examples of the 12 broad groups and the 52 more specific ones?
12 broad groups - high income families, Surburban semis, council flats, stylish singles
52 groups - e.g within high income families the groups include rising materials, ageing professionals
How have GIS providers evolved their databases?
From segments to fragments to individuals, in order to maintain their relevance to retailers micro marketing activities (Ziliani, 2000)
What is micro marketing?
- A type of marketing that targets a specific group of people in a niche market
