In this thesis, the optimal location for a large format, organic food retail store is determined using the Huff Model in Montreal, Canada. The Huff Model has been widely used in marketing analysis to determine the optimal location in a variety of contexts. First, the study used Statistics Canada 2001 food expenditure data for Montreal to generate a double log linear food expenditure model for Montreal consumers. Variance Inflation Factors were calculated to test if there were multicollinearity problems, and a Breusch-Pagen test was done to test for heteroskedasticity. Neither of the results showed any statistical problems. Second, AC Nielson survey results were used to facilitate the organic food expenditure calculation process. Third, the travel distance from all census tracts in Montreal to the candidate store locations were calculated using the Manhattan distance calculator (McLafferty and Grady, 2005). Finally, the Huff Model was used to calculate an attractiveness index for each candidate location. The conclusion from the results of the empirical analysis was that, among the 45 candidate locations, which are scattered all across Montreal, 5445 de Gaspe gained the highest attractiveness index. This location is situated close to relatively affluent and highly populated areas of the city, and is also very accessible. Not only is this just a few blocks from two metro stations, and close to city bus routes, it is also adjacent to several major streets such as Saint-Laurent to the west, Saint-Denis to the east, Rosemont to the north and Saint-Joseph to the south. This thesis has provided a new application of the Huff model, which could be used in various markets, and has provided an interesting combination of models from the field of Economic Geography, and Agricultural Economics.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.101602 |
| Date | January 2007 |
| Creators | Li, Beibei, 1980- |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Science (Department of Agricultural Economics.) |
| Rights | © Beibei Li, 2007 |
| Relation | alephsysno: 002611960, proquestno: AAIMR32743, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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