A study on the impact of Apple experience stores located in commercial complexes on the mixture of stores in the vicinity of them : a ecological theory perspective

Abstract

Commercial complex is an important form of existence in today's commercial buildings. They usually contain more than three kinds of business types, include retail, catering, leisure, exhibition, and other types of urban life functions. Commercial complexes can provide citizens with shopping, rest, and social public spaces at the same time. Inside commercial complexes, anchor stores play a very important role in their business layout. Because of their strong brand effect, anchor stores can attract many customers and play a certain role in guiding the passenger flow. And the strong ability in attracting traffic gives anchor stores the ability to influence on the traffic of other stores in the proximity of it. Therefore, a reasonable business layout of stores located in the vicinity of the anchor stores can better promote the common development of anchor stores, stores nearby, and the commercial complex. This mutually beneficial and symbiotic relationship has many similarities with the ecological niche theory in urban ecosystems. The anchor store chosen as the research object for this dissertation is the Apple experience store, which mainly sells intelligent electronic terminal products. As anchor stores whose sales are characterized by an experience business model, Apple experience stores rely on combining product experience (such as trials of various products and using electronic screens to show short introduction videos of newly released products, etc.) and product sales. This kind of combination will attract many customers and expand its brand effect. Since they have a strong ability to attract traffic, some stores that hope to increase their profits with the help of Apple experience store traffic will choose to be located near them. This dissertation will use the theory of urban ecological niche and apply its research methods to the level of smaller anchor stores in commercial complexes. We choose Hong Kong as the city where this research is located and analyze the requirements of this dissertation (which means those stores are all in commercial complexes) of the various niche factors of Apple experience stores in this commercial complex. After that, this dissertation will use methods of quantitative analysis to collect, count and analyze information such as the types of business layout, target customers, and brand positioning of stores located near Apple experience stores, and use statistical graphs to evaluate the mixture type of stores near Apple experience stores. At the same time, this dissertation will choose Watsons as the representative of traditional anchor stores without the application of experience marketing model. We will also count and analyze the business layout relationship between Watsons stores which located in commercial complexes and stores nearby. By comparing the difference between anchor stores in two different modes of the mixture of stores nearby, the impact of Apple experience stores (which is famous for its experience business format) on the mixture of stores nearby will then be studied. Lastly, this dissertation will make suggestions for the layout of stores near Apple experience stores that will be in commercial complexes in the future.