Theoretical elements for understanding the dynamics of retail trade in a global environment

Abstract

One of the economic activities that have had the greatest recomposition in its form and operation in Mexico, since the trade openness and developed with the North American Free Trade Agreement, are those related to the retail trade. Throughout the 1990s, retail trade transformed its structure, dynamics, territorial distribution, agents involved, the composition of the offer, as well as many of the consumer preferences changed, which led to the coexistence of different types of structures and commercial surfaces, where traditional forms of sale coexist with the modern and innovative ones.

  This article describes and discusses the different theoretical approaches to commerce and retail distribution, as the analytical support to understand and analyze the recent dynamics introduced by the current trade formats that exist in almost any globalized economy. Hence, we can confirm the close relationship between the economy and trade distribution, where distribution strategies reflect the economic environment and vice versa.