Abstract
A central topic in the retail analysis is store location, which is related to its attractiveness and even with its profitability. In order to determine the force of attraction of a given point of sale, methodologies based on gravitational models have been developed. More recently, classic models have been integrated with Geographic Information Systems (GIS). This paper explores a methodology for retail spatial analysis in a GIS environment, and it aims to: (a) model the degree of influence of different store location attributes on the consumer choice among a collection of retail options, and (b) develop an empirical application for the clothing retail business sector in the city of Santa Maria, RS, Brazil. The study selects three relevant location attributes of store choice: retail market clustering, local accessibility of the street network, and topographic slope of the terrain. These three location features were taken as inputs for the attractiveness evaluation of each store, using the Huff model. As a result, we were able to model the trading areas of each shop related to the selected attributes. The paper provides a methodology for modelling the performance of retail location attributes and building different scenarios of probabilities for consumer patronage, allowing a first measure of the influence of each selected store location attribute.
Highlights
Trading is one of the most primitive and fundamental social relations in human society
Retail location is a central topic in market geography
Fast and low-cost computers associated with the growing availability of urban data and information allow for the application of more detailed gravitational models, exploring the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) functionalities to operate with data in different geographic scales [24]
Summary
Trading is one of the most primitive and fundamental social relations in human society. The spatial structure of cities is closely linked to the location and spatial pattern of retail establishments The importance of this activity is highlighted in the literature as attracting movement, creating centralities, as well as reinforcing the revitalization of urban areas. Many studies seek to identify the logic of the spatial location and distribution of trade in cities. Among these approaches are the gravitational models, pioneered by William J. This paper adopts a retail gravitational approach (Huff model) exploring a methodology for retail spatial analysis in a GIS environment. This paper is aiming to enrich the traditional modelling of retail attractiveness by introducing more qualitative descriptions of retail location: location is about the distance to the consumers, and to some urban form attributes, such as street grid connectivity, relative position, terrain slope, spatial agglomeration, etc. The final section concludes the main findings and the limitations and potentialities of the methodology, and possible future studies in this topic
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