GIS for Retail Businesses

Site Analysis and Planning

Retail’s digital transformation demands an aggressive brick and mortar strategy. Decisions to expand require mobility data, consumer preferences, and locations with the most potential to grow loyal customers. Geospatial solutions enable you to discover new markets, gain retail competitive insights, accelerate conversion rates and improve foot traffic by enriching your retail traffic analysis with geodemographic, socio-economic and consumer expenditure data. Use retail store mapping solutions to visualize data sometimes missed by using traditional charts and graphs, which many of today’s business intelligence software solutions now includes. 

Last Mile Delivery

The profitability of supply chains depends on efficiently delivering goods by allocating the right resources. Geospatial technology provides the tools to not only track shipments but also to design the most cost-effective routes while minimizing vehicle maintenance and reducing the carbon footprint. Identifying the right location for operations is critical as more logistics companies are moving network operations and distribution hubs closer to consumers.

Market Research

Knowing your customer is absolutely essential in today’s highly competitive market where grabbing the attention the desired retail segment in a world swirling with social media makes it difficult to promote your brand. Use geospatial technology to find the answers to the most important marketing questions: Where are my best customers? Where are my best locations? How do I analyze the buying preferences of my most loyal customers? Integrate myriad data sources, create predictive sales models, and anticipate the impact of new competitors.

Service Area Qualification

For quick service restaurants (QSRs), being able to serve your local clientele with the right mix of menu options in a convenient, timely manner is paramount to profitability. So, “knowing your customer” means that you understand the amount of discretionary income, geodemographic composition and how far they are willing to travel. In addition, QSRs are now adapting to add delivery options, and it’s necessary to know if they can serve their customer in a timely manner. Geospatial technology supports consumer targeting as well as offering e-commerce options for address validation and type-ahead functionality to understand serviceability and reduce cart abandonment rates.

Customer Analytics

Do you have a single view of each customer? Could you tell where, when, and how much they bought at each brick-and-mortar store as well as online purchases? Consumer preferences and needs vary depending on where they live. In order to compete effectively in today’s highly mobile market, retailers need to dissolve the barriers between physical and digital channels to create the “endless aisle” experience so customers can order online, in-store or even out-of-stock options.

Geospatial solutions enable retailers to analyze the location of each transaction, informing the marketing and sales team where the optimum point of sale (POS) occurs ensuring customer success and ensuring that the company demonstrates enterprise-level integration for unified commerce. Understanding how to measure retail foot traffic and retail store traffic eases the process of getting the right product to the right consumer at the right time and at the right place since it is critical for an effective merchandizing and pricing strategy. That means delivering the right buying experience regardless of physical, digital or the mix of buying online and pick up in-store alternatives.

Tax Jurisdiction Assignment

Over the last several years, many counties and municipalities have complicated taxing by adding special purpose tax districts to collect taxes in very small geographies. This contributes to the complexity of the existing layers of school, property, and other local tax boundaries. So, how do businesses determine if they are collecting or paying the right taxes? Are they being charged correctly based on the revenue they must report on a regular basis?

Make geospatial technology and data essential tools when determining the proper taxes by accessing tax district boundary file data that helps you understand where your assets are located and in which tax districts.