Modelling Intuition in Retail Site Assessment (MIRSA): making sense of retail location using retailers' intuitive judgements as a support for decision-making

摘要

Analogues are used by retailers as a forecasting method and as performance benchmarks for new sites. This paper outlines an innovative analogue method that uses the 'intuitive' field-level judgements of retail directors obtained through cognitive mapping to classify sites according to their similarity to store analogues. The paper also discusses the problems of existing methods of site assessment relating to their tendency to underplay managerial judgements; outlines an innovative qualitative clustering method that mirrors decision-makers' knowledge to identify analogues by their degree of similarity to a new site; and assesses its value with reference to user responses in a live 'real-time' decision situation.