Send me your location, I mean Starbucks and Dunkin' - Part 2

Tue 24 October 2017 in Business,

"How many coffee shops in Boston?"

Hmmm...well, suppose there are 1 million people in Boston. Then... NOPE. Stop it. This series is nothing about strategy for any brain teaser. This is an analysis about two major coffeehouse chains, Starbucks vs Dunkin' Donuts, "corporate + license" vs pure franchise, in Boston area. I will walk you through their distribution and strategies of choosing a location (if consistent). This series is roughly separated by following parts.

Who are Dunkin's and Starbucks' favorite neighbors?

In this post, you would find out what type of merchants does Starbucks and Dunkin' prefer. And I will show you if this preference is consistent among different regions. You can also find my code here. Enjoy!

Quick review of datasets:

nearby: The amount of merchant within 1000 meters (0.6 mile) for a given store

For the significance of analysis results, I combined categories as other if there are more than 10% of coffeehouses with no any this type of merchant around. This is the final list of categories for this post:
atm, bank, beauty_salon, cafe, car_repair, church, convenience_store, electronics_store, gas_station, gym, home_goods_store, laundry, liquor_store, park, physiotherapist, restaurant_cheap, school, transit_station, other

Restaurants and ATMs are on FIRE!

After you get a cup of coffee from either Starbucks or Dunkin', it won't be hard for you to find a cheap restaurant or an ATM. These are the same top 2 popular merchants/facilities in the neighborhood. Besides the nature of business, it might also make sense for people grabbing a drink after a quick meal. Typically, those restaurants won't serve coffee. Most of Dunkin' and Starbucks stores are located in the area with lots of cafe stores. It shows Dunkin', Starbucks and other cafe store should share some similar strategies in choosing locations.

Starbucks liked a more 'diversified' neighborhood (Updated on October 24, 2017)

29 types of merchants have at least one strong relation with another type for Starbucks, while this number is 23 for Dunkin'. I defined a strong relation between a pair of types when more than 80% of coffeehouse have both of them in the neighborhood.

For both Starbucks and Dunkin', cheap restaurant, ATM, convenience store, cafe, transit station, and car repair store are the most influential factors, that have the biggest number of strong relation. Besides, park, home goods store, electronics store are also in the list for Starbucks.

Dunkin' really loves transit station, car repair store and gas station

Dunkin' has a much stronger preference for transit station, car repair store, gas station and church than Starbucks. Besides, Dunkin' is more likely to be in the area with laundry store, liquor store, park and school. In contrast, Starbucks has a relatively stronger preference with bank, beauty salon and gym than Dunkin'. It basically conforms to the different markets they focuses on (i.e, commercial and business districts for Starbucks; residential districts and places related to commuting, like transit station and high way, for Dunkin').

Interestingly, Starbucks' preference could not describe its stores in major commercial area, while Dunkin's preference is less applicable in residential area

More than half of Starbucks stores in major commercial area and Allston are different from the average level. In contrast, regions, that are most distinctive to the average level, for Dunkin' are the places outside of major commercial area.

Commercial area are featured with bank and cafe while residential areas are featured with gas stations, car repair stores and transit station

For either Dunkin' or Starbucks, there are obviously less gas stations and car repair stores in major commercial area, comparing to each of their average levels. In contrast, stores in residential area have way less banks but more gas stations, car repair stores and transit station. Besides, the number of cafe is much smaller in the regions like Charlestown, Dorchester, Jamaica, Chelsea.

Conclusion

Both of Starbucks are Dunkin' love staying with restaurants and ATMs. However, Starbucks prefers bank while Dunkin' stay more closely with gas stations, car repair stores and transit stations.

Limitation

Due to a maximum of 200 results for each search, the number of merchants may not describe its actual situation well.

What's next?

Instead of using officially-defined region, you will know different kinds of communities in Boston area in the next post. Similar regions would be grouped into a large community based on their merchant components. You would also have an expectation of what could be more likely found around a coffeehouse.