Retailing, GIS and Geodemographics – Market Areas:
Determining the Impacts of Different Delineation Methods
You need to use ArcMap to complete the job
In this assignment, you will look at different methods to delineate market areas for a chain of stores (Home
Depot) and identify the differences in their estimates of the customer base. In doing so, you will also make a
determination of which method is most suitable. This determination can be made off of any number of factors,
including ease of delineating the market areas, the results of the analysis, issues with the method, or any other
pro/con you have identified. However, a key part of this assignment is actually conducting analysis to be
presented as you investigate this problem. But don’t worry – all of the steps that you will have to do will have
been covered in the workshops!
What you will be doing: – Using the Home Depot store location data, you need to delineate market areas for
each store three ways: through buffers (where you will have to decide and justify two sizes of buffer); and
through Thiessen polygons. – Using census tract data, you will need to calculate the number of people in each
store’s market area. It is up to you to determine how best to present this information (i.e. averages, differences,
values for individual stores; in-text or in a table). – You will need to make one or more maps to show the market
areas you created and then use these as evidence to qualitatively judge the market areas that were created
(i.e. for overlap, completeness, or any other factor you may notice).
The data that you will be provided: – Point shapefile data (vector) for the locations of Home Depot locations in
the GTA – Polygon shapefile data (vector) of population data based on census tracts in the GTA
Sample Solution
