Integrated analysis of retail trade areas : (2) empirical validation

Abstract

An integrated analysis of retail trade areas was proposed in Part I of two papers on the analysis of trade areas. The proposed analysis incorporated four techniques, namely the Multi-Criteria Saturation Index (MCSI), Retail Diversification Index (RDI), Demand Density Analysis (DDA) and Growth Matrix (GM). Improvements to the analogue method are also proposed, including economic indicators to account for the time value of money. In Part II the validity of the proposed integrated analysis is tested, based on a comparison of actual versus forecast shopping centre sales data for twelve shopping centres in South Africa. A negligible difference was observed between actual and forecast sales.