Spatio-Temporal Analysis of Store Location Using the Gini Coefficient

Abstract

It is quite important in business marketing to understand the geographical distribution of retail stores and its trend across time. As a basic study of GIS in retail location analysis, we propose a new method for measuring the degree of spatial concentration of stores. The new method, which is developed from the Gini coefficient and the Lorenz curve, enables us to conduct a statistical test of whether or not stores are globally and locally concentrated in a region. The method is applied to the distribution of stores in Shibuya ward using the multi-temporal store location obtained from telephone books. The result indicates that the proposed method is effective and will be useful for location marketing.