Watching the Growth of Walmart Across America, Interactive Edition

Posted Jul 10, 2008 to Data Sources, Featured, Mapping by Nathan  /  38 responses

Watching the Growth of Walmart Across America, Interactive Edition

When I saw Toby's Walmart growth video a while back, I was intrigued by what other time-location data Freebase had. A few commented on how it'd be interesting to map the spread of Starbucks along with Walmart and other businesses. I agreed. So I looked, but as it turns out, there's not a whole lot of opening dates for business other than Walmart. In fact, about 2/3 of the Walmart locations don't even have dates. Sigh. Maybe another day. Instead, I used the Walmart data as a learning exercise.

My Own Walmart Growth Video

Yesterday I quickly put together my own Walmart growth video using Modest Maps. It has the usual mapping features - panning and zooming - while you watch Walmart spread like wildfire. It starts out slow with the first location in Arkansas in 1962 and then spreads vast in a hurry.

You'll notice it looks a bit like Trulia Hindsight, because yes, I'm a biter. But hey, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right? Actually I just find that trying to recreate things helps me learn more efficiently. Thanks, Tom for the tip on TweenFilterLite, which makes tweening and filtering a lot more straightforward.

UPDATE: Due to popular demand, I added year and store count to the mix. Now for some dramatic music.

UPDATE 2: I got my hands on the complete data (yeah!) and cleaned up the locations, so no more missing stores or stores in the ocean up until 2007.

« Previous Post Next Post »

Replies

38 responses to "Watching the Growth of Walmart Across America, Interactive Edition"
  • Yihui
    Jul 10, 2008, 5:24 am

    Hey, Nathan, still remember me? I’m the guy talking about animations in DataViz VI :)

    I have a minor suggestion here. Why not add some statistics to the video (such as the number of markets, the time line, or even the 2D density, …) so that we can have a more precise recognition about the growing process?

  • Moritz Stefaner
    Jul 10, 2008, 5:34 am

    Nice one - the background map looks really good - how did you do it? Flash filter on a Yahoo/Google map - or is it a composite?

  • Nathan
    Jul 10, 2008, 9:07 am

    Yihui - yup, i remember. the main reason is that it was mostly a learning exercise so i was working on what i didn’t know how to do first, and then the day ended :) but i’ll be sure to include some statistics on the next round of things.

    Moritz - yeah, you got it. it’s a flash filter on a Microsoft map. i’ll put up the code next week.

  • Chrissie
    Jul 10, 2008, 10:51 am

    would love to see this for other retail outlets: best buy, circuit city, mcdonalds, etc. very cool, thanks.

  • Chrissie
    Jul 10, 2008, 11:09 am

    hey, some of my co-workers zoomed out and noticed there is one store off the coast off west africa. perhaps a small DB error?

  • Nathan
    Jul 10, 2008, 11:33 am

    Chrissie - good catch :). on a quick glance at the data, it looks like there were some zipcodes that freebase didn’t have latitude and longitude for, so those walmarts end up at lat/lon 0/0 - in the middle of nowhere.

  • Michal Migurski
    Jul 10, 2008, 12:26 pm

    I love the state-by-state growth … slow expansions into neighboring southern states, studious avoidance of the northeast and west coast, and then BAM. Can you display the years?

  • Nathan
    Jul 10, 2008, 12:57 pm

    Michal - Shoot, I must’ve accidentally edited out that the flurry at the end is from all the stores missing their “opening date” in freebase, so it’s not quite as exciting :P

    i really do need to get that year and store count in though.

  • tony
    Jul 10, 2008, 4:56 pm

    There is missing data or it’s out of sequence. The animation shows Walmart didn’t invade Texas until after 2001? I know that can’t be right. Is it becasue the ???? dated data points at the end of the animation account for the lack of data points in Texas pre-2001. I’m in Texas if you couldn’t guess. I think Dairy Queens and Walmarts have been in Texas since it’s admission to the Union ;-)

  • schiano
    Jul 10, 2008, 10:16 pm

    No stores in New Jersey? Huh?

  • Calichef
    Jul 11, 2008, 5:48 am

    I couldn’t understand why there were no Walmarts shown in CA until the end, then I finally realized that you didn’t have correct opening dates for CA stores. I think they started opening stores in CA in the mid-80s.

  • mullingitover
    Jul 11, 2008, 7:45 am

    The weird thing: if you zoom out you’ll see there’s one off the coast of Africa? What’s that all about?

  • eb
    Jul 11, 2008, 9:56 am

    Like Tony in TX noted, there is some missing data. I lived in central FL and I recall the first Wal-Mart in the (then) little town opening in the mid to late 80’s, and then there were numerous Wal-Marts throughout central FL by 1990. I was also thinking like Crissie and curious about other retailers (Dollar General?). I have noticed there are no Wal-Marts in the Florida Keys and I can’t say I care! I love-hate Wal-Mart. I try to avoid it for the most part.
    Anyway, it’s really cool what you did. :)

  • Mike
    Jul 11, 2008, 11:08 am

    Nice visualization, but the data is incomplete. Almost all of New England seems to be missing. Good job anyway, though.

  • Edward
    Jul 11, 2008, 1:35 pm

    Nice work. You can also put the title: “CDC Simulation of an Outbreak of (insert bad virus name here)” and I would believe it.

  • Dibyo
    Jul 12, 2008, 9:13 am

    Awesome.

  • minerva66
    Jul 13, 2008, 2:31 pm

    I know for sure there were some Walmarts in Houston, TX area in the early to mid 1980s. Not in every town like there is now, just a few.

  • Alaska
    Jul 17, 2008, 11:41 am

    Don’t forget about Alaska and Hawaii We have Wallmarts there too. AND we are states in the United States. If you want to make your data a bit more acturate I suggest you add them.

  • lotsajargon
    Jul 18, 2008, 4:28 pm

    I have seen maps like this before, but this is the best by far. Nicely done! The only thing that would really take it to the next level would be international growth in Mexico, Europe, Asia–and then constriction when Wal-Mart loses out and closes stores–such as in Germany and Korea.

    One question: Is there any way to get/make a copy of this as a media file for use in a lecture. It would be even more useful if shared in a classroom. I would, of course cite the source!

  • Graham
    Jul 19, 2008, 1:11 am

    Really neat. I’m intrigued if there was ever a store closure or move to different premises, and how you would show that. I would envision a red flashing dot for closure or concurrent orange a green dots for a move? That would be a great “rise and fall of” visualisation for any enterprise that grew and then bit the dust for any reason.
    Also what about takeovers? Walmart bought the sizeable Asda chain in UK a year or 2 back. A different shade of green perhaps?

  • Nathan
    Jul 19, 2008, 10:21 am

    graham - the hard part is getting the data :/

  • Frank
    Jul 24, 2008, 2:12 am

    Great animation, be very interesting to see this on a worldwide basis. The acquisition of ASDA in the UK for example would appear like a bomb.

  • Kris
    Jul 31, 2008, 1:31 am

    A minor detail, but the cylindrical map projection doesn’t really work over any significant North South distance. Can you use a more realistic projection that doesn’t distort the US so much?

  • Nathan
    Jul 31, 2008, 10:25 am

    Kris - what projection do you suggest?

  • Rich Gould
    Aug 1, 2008, 4:31 pm

    Absolutely love this animation. Best one I’ve seen…
    Hope you don’t mind, but I “borrowed” it and added some drama and dialogue.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojLQ2t6N1EU

    Nothing against Wal-Mart per se… just when I saw your video, it reminded me of the famous “Agent Smith” speech…

    I’m sure if you could find similar data, you could take many popular chains, apply this same treatment and have the same effect. Imagine the plotting out the spread of McDonald’s over the past 60 years?

  • Nathan
    Aug 3, 2008, 11:10 am

    Rich - hehe, that was entertaining. thanks

  • 30ware
    Aug 5, 2008, 11:28 am

    Great job. It would be interesting to see one of these for Starbucks (and then show the closing of the stores as well)

  • gaza
    Aug 5, 2008, 1:44 pm

    the virus spreads.

  • Andrew Pratley
    Aug 5, 2008, 6:42 pm

    Nathan,

    Is someone reposting your content…?

  • Nathan
    Aug 5, 2008, 7:37 pm

    Andrew - THANK YOU for the heads up. i deleted the link in your comment so as not to give that site any publicity. punks.

  • Ken
    Aug 10, 2008, 10:42 am

    30ware:
    “Great job. It would be interesting to see one of these for Starbucks (and then show the closing of the stores as well”

    PLEASE, yes, please replicate this for Starbucks.

  • Andrew D Snyder
    Aug 13, 2008, 8:29 pm

    Where did you get the time-location data? As noted, Freebase does not have data for every location.

    Curious,

    Andrew

  • Nathan
    Aug 13, 2008, 10:23 pm

    Andrew - take a look at the link in the second update at the bottom of the post.

Trackbacks/Pings

Add Your Response

Comments for this post will be closed on 13 August 2009.

« Previous Post Next Post »