Online Store Locator: An Essential Resource for Retailers in the 21st Century

Gonzalo Wandosell, M. Parra-Meroño and Raul Baños
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Gonzalo Wandosell: Department of Social Sciences, Law and Business, Catholic University of Murcia, 30107 Murcia, Spain
Raul Baños: Department of Engineering, University of Almería, 04120 Almería, Spain

Social Sciences, 2019, vol. 8, issue 2, 1-13

Abstract: Most retailers use their websites and social media to increase their visibility, while potential customers get information about these retailers using the Internet on electronic devices. Many papers have previously studied online marketing strategies used by retailers, but little attention has been paid to determine how these companies provide information through the Internet about the location and characteristics of their stores. This paper aims to obtain evidence about the inclusion of interactive web maps on retailers’ websites to provide information about the location of their stores. With this purpose, the store locator interactive tools of specialty retailers’ websites included in the report “Global Powers of Retailing 2015” are studied in detail using different procedures, such as frequency analysis and word clouds. From the results obtained, it was concluded that most of these firms use interactive maps to provide information about their offline stores, but today some of them still use non-interactive (static) maps or text format to present this information. Moreover, some differences were observed among the search filters used in the store locator services, according to the retailer’s specialty. These results provided insight into the important role of online store locator tools on retailers’ websites.

Keywords: online store locator; information technology; retailing; geographic information systems (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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