Assignment 5: Final Project

Camping World

1       What is Camping World?

Camping World is a new business looking to be based the counties of Ada and Canyon in Idaho who contain the Boise metropolitan area. Camping World want to sell tents, camping equipment, as well as backpacking or hiking equipment. This store is going to be more focused on campers who do not campers or RV's. This store is for the adventurer in all of us. Positioned near large wilderness areas like the Sawtooth National Forest, there are ample opportunities for people in this region to explore the great outdoors. The Boise area is also one of the largest metropolitan areas in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. This large population base offers further business opportunities than just opening one store. With room for possible growth and with camping entrenched as one of America’s favorite pastimes, a future store in this location is a situation that cannot be passed over.

2       Demographics

Ada and Canyon counties have populations of 409,239 and 195,353, respectively. These numbers combined account for nearly 38 percent of Idaho’s population. Add that up with a 7.76% growth rate for the Boise metro from 2010, future customers are not a need for concern. However, due to the large pool of customers available, certain analysis should be run to help narrow the focus and identify the best customers.

The first part of this process would be running a Customer Prospecting tool within Business Analyst. The parameters set to find certain customers were the zip codes within Ada and Canyon counties had to have at least 20,000 people, had to spend more than 80 dollars on camping equipment, and more than 2,000 people had to have gone on an overnight camping trip in the last 12 months. The last two pieces of criteria were created by setting a number that was just above or below the median level for the given statistic.  

The end result shows the contiguous areas of Ada and Canyon counties contain the best areas for potential customers. These suburban cities offer more people who would be more likely to shop at Camping World than the larger city of Boise itself. 

The following image shows customer prospecting. The green areas represent zip codes that have customers who match a given set of criteria.

3       Trade Areas

Focusing in on where the best places for a store would be is a tough task. Figuring out which boundaries or guidelines one uses can be a complicated issue due to the the sheer volume of different parameters. For Camping World, three different trade areas were tested. Equal competition areas and simple rings were both utilized, but the best option was determined to be zip codes. 

The zip codes selected were taken from the customer prospecting analysis completed beforehand. The three cities and their zip codes were Eagle, Meridian, and Garden City due to their centralized location in the counties. Also surrounding Boise gives them a larger customer pool to select from. Kuna was ignored due to it's southern position and distance away from Boise.

This map shows the ideal zip codes that a trade area for a certain store should focus on for advertising and marketing opportunities.

4       Market Structure

Knowing who competitors are is crucial to the success of a store in a new location. Within Business Analyst, one can identify other stores in a certain area based on SIC codes. SIC codes describe what type of goods or services an establishment offers. 

To determine who possible competitors would be in the Ada and Canyon Counties area, the search was applied to specialty stores that sold backpacking equipment or tent equipment. This search included wholesale stores as well. Large-scale operations that included RV equipment were ignored as these are not the customers that Camping World would be worried about poaching from.

The results yield only three stores in the study area that would be considered as possible competitors. As one store is all the way in Kampa, this is not of concern for the ideal trade area that was selected from previous analysis. Market saturation is of no concern as there are still large amounts of people in the trade that Camping World stores can select from. 

This image shows where other camping or backpacking stores are located in Ada and Canyon Counties.

5       Gravity Model/Point of Indifference

The gravity model is used to determine how far customer is willing to travel for a certain good between two cities. Factors taken into account are distance between the cities and size of each city. This "point of indifference" is how far a customer is willing to go between the cities. These numbers can be used to identify where customers are coming from a certain store.

This image shows the formula for the gravity model.

These numbers are for the point of indifference for the city of Meridian.

Kuna: 6.8

Eagle: 5

Nampa: 6.7

These numbers are for the point of indifference for the city of Eagle.

Meridian: 2.6

Garden City: 5.2

Caldwell: 7.6

6       Site Selection

Using information from all of the analysis that had been performed prior, three sites were selected for a potential Camping World location. Sites were carefully selected by taking into account where commercial and residential zones were, as well as where major roads or highways were located. Finding the addresses off Google Earth required them to be geocoding within ArcMap so further analysis could be performed.

Site One: (2045 E Overland Rd, Meridian, ID 83642)

Site Two: (1001 S Bridgeway Pl, Eagle, ID 83616)

Site Three: (3600 E Fairview Ave, Meridian, ID 83642)

7       Ranking of Sites

To determine which sites would be most suitable for a new Camping World store, a site rank was performed. Using zip codes as the site which would be ranked upon, a variety of factors were utilized to discover which site would be best. The factors used were 2015 Median Household Income, Consumer Spending on Camping Equipment, and people who went on an overnight camping trip in last 12 months. The results show that the Eagle site, Store Two, is the best option. 

The map depicts which site is most likely to succeed based on Business Analyst calculations as determined by the user.

8       Selection of Site and Conclusion

After all analysis had been completed, the best location for a new store is clear. Store Two located in Eagle, Idaho should be the future location of Camping World. Eagle is sits in a good area with high income and city of Eagle itself is one of the fastest growing cities in Idaho. Along with it's distance away from potential competitors, this is the most attractive site option. Set up for success, Camping World can become firmly entrenched as one of the premier camping stores in the Boise area.