The integration of GIS in the operation of the business has significantly helped in how the company’s geographic location is used and interpreted for competition purposes in the current climatic retail environment. Retail firms are always trying to develop new and better ways of performing their operations, attracting customer patronage, and improving their bottom-line results. These goals require applying geospatial technology, including GIS, GPS, and remote sensing technologies. Using geographic methodologies helps portray the trends to the retailer and assists the retailer in making retail decisions to serve the target market better. This paper examines how geospatial technology fits into the bulk of retail analytics and how it can be used to enhance the performance of a business.
- Understanding Geospatial Technology
“Geospatial technology is the process of gathering, interpreting, and displaying information concerning location and place. It uses GIS, satellite images, and GPS to plot and analyze relationships between data sets in a geographical context. This technology facilitates companies’ understanding of consumers, market, and congestion issues in retail.” explained Deborah Kelly, Marketing & Communications Manager at Brickhunter. For example, using GIS, it is possible to put together demographic information, traffic trends, and places occupied by competitors. When such data is visualized, it would be easy for retailers to make data-driven decisions that align with retailers’ retailers, such as market penetration or chain management.
- Optimizing Store Locations
The selection of an appropriate site for the retail store is highly significant. Business planning through critical space technology enables comparison of the prospects of development sites for factors including pedestrian traffic, population compatibility, and competition. This offers a clear view of how a particular place lies within strategy concerning the targeted market of a retailer. Tristan Dupont, COO of CROWN HEIGHTS, stated, “For instance, a grocery chain might incorporate geospatial analysis to identify areas likely to attract a large population and, simultaneously, their relative competitors. Further, the tool helps evaluate the performance of storing certain regions when stores should be closed or relocated.”
- Enhancing Customer Insights
A significant aspect of the theoretical framework is customer behavior, which is crucial in retail settings and for which geospatial technology offers unique resources. Retailers can find out where their customers live, work, or shop by analyzing location data. This assists in constructing finer arrays of customers and segment consumers, which helps formulate business methodologies. Gerald Chan, Founder of HighGround.asia, gives an example. He says, “A clothing firm may use Geospatial data to discover areas with the highest population of working young people and then market specific loose articles or uniforms to such areas. Such an extent of customization benefits the customers, improving their experience and encouraging them to return for more business.”
- Improving Supply Chain Management
“The retail supply chain is a major interconnected process chain that starts from product acquisition and ends at customer delivery. With the help of geospatial technology, visualization in supply chain logistics, inventory, and transportation is made more accessible in real time. It will also benefit retailers by enabling them to understand delivery timetables, diminish transference time, and enhance performance.” asserts Alex L., Founder of StudyX. For instance, GPS with geospatial intelligence helps retailers follow shipment progress while receiving real-time information on delivery delays so they can be rerouted. This guarantees that products are delivered to the customers on time, as this makes them very reliable to the customers.
- Enhancing Marketing Strategies
“Using geospatial technology in retail’s most practical application can be seen in location-based marketing. Since topographic information can be used to classify and target particular regions for campaigns, retailers can develop unique campaigns that appeal to the chosen target groups and demographics,” said Andy Fryer, Co-Founder of Easy Signs. For instance, a restaurant business can adopt geospatial analysis to recommend dinner deals to customers based on the businesses’ outlets during lunch. It further enhances the efficiency of the marketing communication and caters to the cost since resources are deployed where they are likely to yield maximum returns. Moreover, to establish the effectiveness of marketing campaigns, one could use geospatial tools concerning the traffic and revenues in autofocuses
- Predicting Market Trends
“The application of geographic information in the market assists retailers in predicting competition patterns from past analyses of geographic information over time. It helps retailers to get insights from new areas, like population growth areas or areas where consumers are becoming more expressive in their demand for particular products. This predictive capability enables business managers to change strategies before they become unfavorable.” commented Dan Close, Founder and CEO at We Buy Houses in Kentucky. For instance, a home improvement store will apply geospatial analytics to discover areas with a high incidence of new house construction, possibly recommending a need for construction and home improvement products. Implementation of such knowledge aims at making retailers productive and efficient.
- Understanding Competitor Dynamics
“Studying competitors is always an essential element of strategic planning, and geo-technology assists in this endeavor. Competitors’ store locations can be graphed, and competitors’ market share and possible niches can be spotted. This helps businesses gain better ground within the marketplace.” stated Nely Hayes, Marketing Manager at ERoofing. For example, several coffee shops can adopt geospatial analysis to identify tutors, their foot traffic, and proximity to offices. It is efficient in targeting some client segments, thus avoiding oversaturation, and at the same time, it is profitable.
- Boosting In-Store Experience
“Geospatial technology has implications in both the external setting and the environment inside the store. Using tracking of customer flows, an analyst will discover the hot spots within a store they have never been thought of before and enhance the inside navigation and signage. This results in better client satisfaction and consequently sells more stuff.” analyzed Ben Flynn, Marketing Manager at 88Vape. For instance, heat mapping created using geographical information can help discern where people pay the most attention. Retailers can utilize this information in stores to position ideal merchandise or lure displays, make a sales-from-the-aisle effect, and, hence, have a high sales margin.
Conclusion
Geospatial technolas become a fundamental part of retail analytics, providing numerous tools to improve operations, manage customers, and develop marketing and communication efforts. Retailers who make use of location analysis understand how to work smarter, how to increase their profitability, and how to enhance the experience of their customers, from site selection to optimizing and even predicting the supply chain and demographics, an essential element of the competitive environment, is served by geospatial technology in a fast-growing sector. The long, continuous, speedy growth in the retail environment makes using these tools crucial to meeting the ever-evolving customers’ needs.
James is the head of marketing at Tamoco
