Modeling Retail Chain Expansion and Maturity through Wave Analysis: Theory and Application to Walmart and Target

Lawrence Joseph and Michael Kuby
Additional contact information
Lawrence Joseph: West Marine, Watsonville, CA, USA
Michael Kuby: School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA

International Journal of Applied Geospatial Research (IJAGR), 2015, vol. 6, issue 4, 1-26

Abstract: This article examines retail store deployment through the analysis of waves. Based on concepts originally developed in coastal geomorphology and adapted to medical geography, a theory of retail chain expansion and maturity is presented whereby retailers expand in waves with alternating periods of faster and slower growth. Using a space-time matrix of new store openings, four stages are identified: prospective, deploying, saturation, and revisiting. By analyzing the net change from one period to the next at increasing distances from a retailer's original store, the stages can be represented as swash, backwash, and re-swash waves. Target and Walmart adopted dissimilar strategies, with Walmart diffusing gradually from Arkansas and Target growing from the coasts inward. They were similar, however, in that after expanding into an area they reached a point of saturation and opened fewer stores, then moved on to other areas, only to revisit the earlier areas for new store deployment.

Date: 2015
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://services.igi-global.com/resolvedoi/resolve. ... 018/ijagr.2015100101 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:igg:jagr00:v:6:y:2015:i:4:p:1-26

Access Statistics for this article

International Journal of Applied Geospatial Research (IJAGR) is currently edited by Donald Patrick Albert

More articles in International Journal of Applied Geospatial Research (IJAGR) from IGI Global
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Journal Editor ().