Competition Among Russian Grocery Stores: Facts and Hypotheses to Explore

Abstract

Nowadays Russian retail industry is going through its own "Walmart revolution" when chains are gaining a dominant position on the market crowding out small local shops. While retail markets of the US and Europe have reached stable stage of the development with only minor changes in the market structure, the Russian retail industry is rapidly changing at present, thus, presenting an interesting subject for research. The current study provides an overview of the retail industry in developed countries and proposes a theoretical framework. Based on this, we describe an evolution of the Russian retail industry and indicate its main economic features and peculiarities. After we provide a description of obtained data. We conclude by highlighting relevant ideas for future research that can be studied in the Russian retail context.

Keywords: Retail industries, grocery sector, market studies

JEL Classification: L0, L81