Site Planning using Location Data
How Starbucks uses GIS to plan their next store location
But first, coffee.
The thing that stands true for most of us is we need coffee the first thing in the morning. Worldwide, with over 2.25 billion cups of coffee consumed on a daily basis, coffee is the second most traded commodity, falling a little short behind crude oil. No kidding. Let us understand how our favorite and world’s leading coffee chain Starbucks, with 17 million customers a week, plan their stores to get the most out of business.
Focusing on the right customer demographics and population plays an important role in the success of a business, but so does the location. The primary reason behind that is, businesses rely a great deal on their visibility and exposure to respective target markets. And it is certainly obvious that no one is willing to open stores just for the sake of opening them, those stores must turn profitable¹.
That’s where the data-driven approach comes in. All the major food chains, retailers, hotel chains, and every possible store you think of uses location data to decide their next store location. Starbucks developed a set of criteria to examine and decide the site's location. Let’s see how they do it and what are some additional parameters that they consider.
