Cleaning up the competition with giscience: A market area analysis of Yellow Van Cleaning services

William Applebaum is widely credited with devising many pioneering marketing geography methods during the post-World War II period which are still used today. Applebaum's practical experience and empirical methods focusing on customer origins allowed companies to answer basic spatial questions in regard to where the business should locate and advertise. Many of Applebaum 's pioneering methods have been enhanced by GIScience. Businesses are now using GIS to integrate data from a variety of sources to plan for market area change, analyze sales performance, and select locations for new businesses or identify existing locations where performance is unsatisfactory. One such enterprise is Yellow Van Cleaning and Restoration Services based in Kearney, Nebraska. Using the results from this project, Yellow Van is searching for store frontage in areas where the unrealized potential within their existing market area is greatest. The company also organizes customer prospects based on neighborhoods using the block-groups with the greatest sales potential and targeting those areas with direct marketing strategies.