Retail Site Selection Mapping
Maptitude makes it easy to use maps to analyse and understand the best locations for retail site selection, hotel site selection, or any other facility placement problem. Maptitude is a powerful combination of site mapping software and geographic data that provides everything that you need to make informed decisions.
In addition to the latest demographics, Maptitude includes substantial social, housing, and income data, along with easy-to-use suitability analysis tools that will allow you to better understand the relationships between your demand, supply, and competitor locations.
In addition to the site selection tools below, Maptitude has extensive functionality for Marketing and Sales Mapping including travel time rings.
GIS in Retail Site Selection Process
The retail site location process is not simply a matter of identifying available properties. It requires a series of analytical steps that GIS software is ideally suited to help answer:
- What amenities, attractions, and services are in the surrounding area?
- What is the demographic profile of the market area in terms of education, employment, and buying power (Figure 1)?
- What competitive or complementary retail is in the immediate area (Figure 2)?
- Are there better locations available in the market area such as within a 15-minute drive time ring?
- How accessible is the site from major roads and population centres?
Site Location Analysis:
CASE
STUDY:How CKE manages franchise territories with Maptitude
With Maptitude you can create a circular service area that encompasses a set of points such as addresses. You can then choose to weight the center location by a field in your point layer such as demand (Figure 3).
For example, if you are considering relocating a store, you can create a trade area around your customers and weight the center by their sales volume to determine a new candidate location. Alternatively, you may have a database of client employees. You can then use Maptitude to see the best central location based on the density and distribution of the addresses. These could be weighted by seniority, allowing you to better explore potential site locations by considering staff characteristics.
There is also a site location wizard for site selection analysis (see Facility Location below). The Wizard provides a powerful yet simple to use site selection tool that guides you through the entire site selection process from model creation to site prediction.
In addition, street-based tools allow you to create drive-time rings that give you an additional method for assessing the accessibility of a site. You can use the rings to determine areas that are underserved or to determine how many of your customers would benefit from a new site with shorter drive times (Figure 4).
Facility Location Analysis:
Facility location problems involve choosing the best location for one or more facilities from a set of possible locations (Figure 5). Potential applications include exploring new franchise locations, corporate office relocations, and branch optimization. The included site location toolset addresses all types of site location preferences. For example:
- You want to determine the number of facilities that are required to guarantee a certain level of service.
- You want to maximise the distance between facilities and the population they serve. For example, to minimise proximity to a competitor. Landfills and power plants are also often located relatively far from major population centers.
- You want to consider the presence of existing facilities. The locations of these facilities obviously affect the choice of locations for new facilities. In addition, you may want to consider both adding new facilities and closing one or more existing facilities.
“The Facility Location tool is a gem offering a wide range of opportunities for relocation purposes.”
Paul Lucassen
Lucassen Consulting
