retailing

Selling of merchandise directly to the consumer. Retailing began several thousand years ago with peddlers hawking their wares at the earliest marketplaces. It is extremely competitive, and the failure rate of retail establishments is relatively high. Price is the most important arena of competition, but other factors include convenience of location, selection and display of merchandise, attractiveness of the establishment, and reputation. The diversity of retailing is evident in the many forms it now takes, including vending machines, door-to-door and telephone sales, direct-mail marketing, the Internet, discount houses, specialty stores, department stores, supermarkets, and consumer cooperatives.

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Measure of living costs based on changes in retail prices. Consumer price indexes are widely used to measure changes in the cost of maintaining a given standard of living. The goods and services commonly purchased by the population covered are priced periodically, and their prices are combined in proportion to their relative importance. This set of prices is compared with the initial set of prices collected in the base year to determine the percentage increase or decrease. The population covered may be restricted to wage and salary earners or to city dwellers, and special indexes may be used for special population groups (e.g., retirees). Such indexes do not take into account shifts over time in what the population buys; when modified to take subjective preferences into account, they are called constant-utility indexes. Consumer price indexes are available for more than 100 countries.

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For other uses of the word Mercator, see Mercator.

Mercator is a Slovenian retail chain based in Ljubljana. The company was founded in 1949 under the name Živila Ljubljana, but four years later it was renamed and given its current name. Today, Mercator is the biggest Slovenian retail chain, operating hypermarkets, supermarkets and grocery stores in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro.

Until the end of the 1990s, the company operated only in Slovenia, but then it started to spread on other markets by opening new hypermarkets in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia. In 2002, Mercator also opened its first hypermarket in Serbia. Its primary market remains the home market in Slovenia, where the company currently operates 17 hypermarkets, but in early to mid-2000s they opened several new hypermarkets in Croatia and the company currently operates 5 hypermarkets in the country. There are also two Mercator's supermarkets in Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as one in Serbia. Apart from operating hypermarkets, the company also operates a total of more than 1,000 small grocery stores and supermarkets in aforementioned countries. Their future plans are to spread on the markets outside the territories of the former Yugoslavia and become one of the largest supermarket chains in Southeastern Europe.

Apart from selling products of renowned national and international companies, Mercator also operates its own brand of various food, drink and household products that are sold at discount prices in their supermarkets and groceries.

In 2006 Mercator Took over Serbian company M-Rodić, d.o.o.

Marketshare (2005)

-Slovenia - 48,9% -Serbia - 11% (Together with M-Rodić, d.o.o., which is owned 76% by Mercator) -Croatia - 4% -Bosnia and Hercegovina - 5%

International operations

As of 2007, Mercator has operations in the countries listed below.

• Slovenia
• Serbia
• Croatia
• Bosnia and Herzegovina
• Montenegro

Croatia

The first Mercator store was opened in Pula, in 2000. The company now has 15 stores in:

• Zagreb* (x2)
• Split*
• Zadar*
• Pula*
• Osijek*
• Župa Dubrovačka
• Metković
• Novigrad
• Rijeka
• Karlovac
• Velika Gorica
• Samobor
• Čakovec* (x2)
• Đakovo

Bosnia and Herzegovina

The first Mercator store was opened in Sarajevo, in 2000. The company now has 5 stores in:

• Sarajevo* (x2)
• Mostar*
• Tuzla*
• Kakanj

Serbia

The first Mercator store was opened in Belgrade, in 2002. The company now has 6 stores in:

• Belgrade* (x2)
• Novi Sad*
• Niš*
• Kragujevac*
• Čačak*

Montenegro

Mercator entered Montenegrin market by 2007 aquisition of 50% stake in domestic MEX retail chain. The chain named Mercator-MEX has 5 stores in:

• Podgorica* (x3)
• Nikšić*
• Bar*

External links

• Mercator
• Mercator Croatia
• Mercator Bosnia and Herzegovina
• Mercator Serbia
• Mercator Serbia (RODA Center)
• M-Rodić Serbia
• Mercator Macedonia