CONCENTRATION OF THE RETAIL TRADE

Abstract

This study was initiated by the issue of strengthening the position of retail trade in marketing channels, resulting in less bargaining power of producers and consumers. Stronger position retail trade has achieved through the dominance of a small number of large retail companies that generate a dominant market share.The purpose of this paper is to show the trend of concentration of retail trade, which results in a stronger position to retail producers and the consumers. Globalization of the market led to the intensifying of the trade internationalization, which has resulted in strengthening of the trade concentration on international level. Today, the concentration on the national level for many markets reached international proportions. However, the level of concentration in some countries is considerably different. The concentration of global retail turnover illustrates the piece of information that a very well known 250 of global retailers in 2012 with joint turnover in amount of 4.29 trillions US dollars achieved 29.4% of the share in global retail turnover. The world’s 10 largest retailers saw their share of total Top 250 sales 29.3 percent of the Top 250’s combined sales. During studies there are used different scientific methods: normative methods, data collection methods, content analysis, comparative, statistical, generic and other methods. Methods of data collection focused on the use of secondary data from books, magazines and websites. The research results shows that the concentration in the retail trade, observed as the market share of the top retailers at the state level, is much higher in the developed countries of the EU than in the other countries. At the end, we can conclude that concentration of retail led to strengthening of its role and domination in marketing channels. The processes of the trade concentration will continue to strength and trade policy will must to follow eventual influence of the concentration on possible monopolistic position and base on that to define the measures for preventing a monopolistic position.

Key words: concentration, trade, retail, turnover, market share