As digitally native retailers make their first foray into physical stores, and traditional brick-and-mortar retailers reinvent the role of their physical stores, both are facing the important and difficult decisions of where to open new stores, and which existing stores to close.

Even with the best insights, retailers know that they should not analyze a store opening or closure decision in isolation, given its broader impact on the rest of the store network, digital channels and customer base. Yet, without the right algorithms and data, overall network and channel effects are difficult to quantify.

Anonymized and aggregated data sets, while valuable, tell only part of the story for store selection.

In this white paper, Kamal Parida and Vib Prasad examine a more effective approach to network planning that combines the traditional data sources with external data and advanced analytics solutions.