Applied spatial modelling for retail location-based decision making and impact assessment: incorporating the spatiotemporal dimension Seminar

Event details

This seminar outlines ongoing research to enhance the location-based decision making capacity of (grocery) retailers. The grocery sector is experiencing unprecedented shifts in consumer behaviours and has been the subject of considerable academic research within this context, much of it carried out in collaboration with the commercial sector. I report on a series of interlinked projects which seek to capture more nuanced consumer behaviours within a spatial modelling framework. A series of enhancements to the traditional retail modelling tools used by the commercial sector are introduced, enabling incorporation of complex spatial and temporal drivers of consumer demand, such as those resulting from workplace populations, tourism and other forms of non-residential demand. Incorporation of these spatiotemporal demand-side characteristics within a traditional retail modelling framework improves the versatility of these models to capture complex consumer behaviours regarding store choice and shopping mission. I illustrate how these approaches can be used to support public sector retail planning and reflect on our ability to build and calibrate truly disaggregate models which can capture individual consumers’ complex spatiotemporal behaviours. Links to University of Southampton research projects (RIBEN, Population 24/7 and the COWZ) are drawn throughout.