Abstract:

Location choice is critical to a retailer's success, but how do charities and small businesses, for which commercial data can be prohibitively expensive, rigorously assess the potential of store locations? This case study from Oxfam GB, an international development charity based in the UK, shows how data available without charge from a variety of online sources was combined to understand the factors driving retail performance of charity shops and inform location planning. The example is entirely replicable and shows the power of using open data to inform businesses decisions at little to no cost.