Modern Formats Of Distributive Trade And Their Spatial Implications

For an enterprise, deciding on location and spatial distribution of its facilities, represents a decision on the lowest costs and a huge gravity area that will ensure its profitability. For a consumer, it means qualitative supply in terms of spatial, temporal and effort costs, leisure and shopping. New trends in retailing characterized by the increased consumption, increased competition and concentration followed by big size facilities build up in the urban outskirts with strongly present qualitative expansion on the existing sites and with tendency for their further growth, encourage an increasing gap between increasing requirements in terms of space for conducting marketing activities and its scarcity as a resource. The biggest and the most important issue regarding a decision on spatial distribution is defining a gravity area that can be determined, among other techniques, by gravity models. Taking into account huge spending of space, the purpose of the paper is to represent the most important the retic-deductive gravity models and possible solutions regarding a decision on spatial distribution by considering logistic costs. This paper is a part of the research on spatial problems of distributive trade anticipated for publishing in succesive papers.