Shopping centre - a new phenomenon and developing consumer behaviour in the transformation period

Abstract

This article deals with the question of large-scale retail concepts and in particular with the phenomenon of shopping centres. First, the issues of location and management of large shopping centres are discussed and basic problematical aspects of shopping centres are indicated. The situation of shopping centres and hypermarkets and their development in the Czech Republic are also shortly described. The second part of the article characterises emerging consumer behaviour and some ways of research into this question within this specific field of geography. Foreign experience and research methods concerning consumer behaviour are used in the study of the situation in the Czech Republic. A new model of developing shopping behaviour of customers in transforming economies is postulated. The model follows the basic perspective of social geography, i.e. the interaction between social processes and spatial structures.