Retail Trade, Geography of

Retail trade is one of the world's largest economic sectors and is the final step in the distribution of merchandise from producers to consumers. The geography of retail trade is concerned with the spatial patterns of stores, the behaviors of consumers, and the spatial interactions between them. Research on retail trade contributes to a better understanding of economic processes. For example, retail trade can be analyzed in terms of consumer demand and its behaviors, and store supply and its strategies can be examined in the context of various geographic scales. Retail studies show that there are significant demographic differences in the retail attraction of stores, each of which has a different distance decay effect. Different socioeconomic profiles of customers have also influenced retail trade. For ...