Assessing GIS for retail location planning

Abstract Proprietary GIS is rapidly becoming a popular tool in the retail industry for site location analysis. GIS vendors have been quick to exploit this market. At the same time, however, vendors have recognized the limitations concerning the level of spatial analysis available in many of these packages, and have invested in new techniques to add to the kitbag of available GIS solutions. The aim of this paper is to critically evaluate the use of proprietary GIS for retail location planning, using data built up for the city of Leeds in the UK. The paper addresses the appropriateness of simple functions such as mapping, overlay and ‘buffer and overlay’, which have been used in many examples of retail planning. Following this appraisal, we move on to look at more ‘sophisticated’ techniques, such as spatial interaction models, which have only recently begun to appear in proprietary GIS, but to date have received very little evaluation in the literature. In particular, we examine the ease of use of such methods and compare their results with much simpler forms of analysis. Finally, we compare the results from models run within GIS packages with those from more customized software.