Store network expansion in the era of online consumption: Evidence from the Suning Appliance retail chain in China

The advent of online consumption has significantly transformed the operation strategies and store deployment of offline retailers. This paper investigates the store network expansion of Suning Appliance, one of China's most prominent appliance retailers, utilizing GIS spatial analysis and geographically weighted regression. We found that contraction and expansion coexist in an alternating pattern in Suning's store deployment. Notably, contraction predominantly occurs in larger urban markets within more developed regions, while expansion is primarily driven by the integration of e-retail with franchised stores in smaller markets. Furthermore, with online consumption now a staple in daily life, Suning's store deployment is increasingly correlated with Internet penetration. Concurrently, the influence of traditional market condition factors is noticeably diminishing. Our study provides a better understanding of how diffusion and location theories of retailers evolved in the era of online consumption.