The use of GIS in retailing is about to undergo some major changes, says Simon Thompson, Commercial Industry Sector Manager at ESRI, in an article for Extended Retail Solutions.

Thompson points out that geography is becoming a unifying factor for visualizing business problems. GIS is allowing companies to consider many different possibilities easily – to understand potential, to review the impact of different investments, store and product configurations, and changing trends in the retail landscape.

Site selection is one of the most important components of a retailer's arsenal for success, and GIS can help to make this the most valuable. Understanding market facts, customer demand, product lines, and merchandize potential can be evaluated, modeled, and implemented using GIS.

One company that makes it easier for companies to find better sites using GIS is Site to Do Business (STDBonline). STDBonline offers an integrated market analysis system that provides one-stop shopping for demographic information, mapping technology, and reporting tools for any type of company. More than 17,000 members of the Certified Commercial Investment Members (CCIM) Institute, the governing body of the largest commercial real estate network in the world, use this site. They find it is a valuable resource for commercial and investment real estate experts as it gives them the information they need to more profitably analyze market potential and trends.

Read Taking a Different Route in Commercial Investment Real Estate (CIRE) Magazine, featuring STDBonline. Jay Lucas, STDBonline President will be a featured speaker at the 2007 ESRI Business GeoInfo Summit April 23–25, 2007 in Dallas, Texas.

Another company harnessing the power of GIS for retail is SNL Financial, a leading provider of business intelligence for users in America’s top companies and financial institutions. SNL collects, standardizes, and disseminates specialized business information for the banking, financial services, insurance, real estate, and energy industries through a Web portal called SNL Interactive (SNLi). Using GIS, SNLi customers are able to make more informed decisions when evaluating mergers and acquisitions because of SNLi Mapping. They can perform their own market analysis and integrate demographic data and geographic data.

Sara Hyland, SNL Financial, gave an insightful presentation called Developing GIS Applications for the Financial Community: Obstacles and Achievements, at last year's ESRI Business GeoInfo Summit on the implementation and benefits received from this endeavor.

These companies represent a growing trend that geography and GIS are becoming essential to retail success. GIS provides a more intuitive means to integrate multiple business viewpoints. Using GIS analysis, companies can take advantage of greater business visibility and a more complete view of performance compared to static reports and charts. The benefits and potential returns on investment of this enhanced view of business are staggering.