Location Decisions

The old addage has it, reputedly from Colonel Sanders, that there are only three important factors in retailing: location, location and location. BP’s Richard Jungins has a slightly different law for his Food Plus Convenience outlets, ‘location, location and operation are the golden rules’. A number of exceptions in the multiple sector to these apparent rules, such as Habitat and Argos, who prosper from what are regarded as often secondary sites, may call into question the generalisation that location is all-important. However, the amount of care taken by leading food multiples in site assessment would indicate that where a retail business is can be as important as what it does.