Global Definitions Database

An approach to estimating the retail trade area (and sales/revenue potential) for a given establishment or center which holds that trade centers draw consumers from neighboring communities in proportion to the trade areas’ populations and in inverse proportion to the distances between the communities and the trade areas; in analogy with Isaac Newton's law of gravitation, the point of indifference is the point at which the "attractiveness" of two retail centers (postulated to be proportional to their size and inversely proportional to the square of the distance to them) is equal; utilized as the traditional means of trading-area delineation that establishes a point of indifference between two cities or communities, so the trading area of each can be determined;  heuristic developed by William J. Reilly in 1931.