Vectiv Helps Apple Map New Store Locations

When Apple Computer Inc. was selecting locations last year for its planned chain of retail stores, vice president of real estate George Blankenship drew on his prior experience at Gap Inc. While at Gap, he had met with Vectiv Corp., which offers a tracking product that maps the best locations for stores and tracks customer information and store performance.

"Real estate is not always seen within some corporations by the impact it has, both on the revenue end and the expense end," Blankenship observed. "And the expense of a bad decision is really significant, especially for a small company."

Apple used ZIP codes and other data collected through catalog sales to begin tracking customers. It started beta testing Vectiv's product in July and started actively using it in November. By year-end 2001, 27 stores had opened.

The system allows Blackenship to track deals and identify new locations and can be accessed by multiple people in different locations. Thus, managers at the store level can enter customer information that can be measured financially. It can even help keep track of store layout specifics. Data can be studied in map or spreadsheet form and can be focused both regionally and nationally.

"The unique thing about this particular system is it takes what is usually done in two to three to four places and (with) an outside consultant (and puts) all of that in one place."