Retail chains, particularly those with small stores of approximate area of 150-180 square feet, are expanding aggressively in China. Because studies and essays related to this phenomenon are rare, this study evaluated the ideal locations for such chain stores. The three major aspects of site selection are population structure of the trade area, traffic-carrying capacity, and attraction of the facilities; these aspects can be decomposed into ten site-selection elements: crowd flow in front of the retail store, resident population, target number of clients, complementary stores, mutually exclusive shops, advantages in establishing the store, disadvantages in establishing the store, actual usable space in the store, ratio of rent to gross profit volume and rate of investment return. Multiple stepwise regression was applied in this study. The evaluation model provides retailers a fast and reliable store selection method for acquiring profitable new stores.
Relation:
International Journal of Industrial and Systems Engineering 28(3), p.346-359
