GeoJournal 45: 255–264, 1998.

© 1998 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

255

Classifications of retail stores and shopping centres: some methodological issues

Clifford M. Guy
Department of City and Regional Planning, Cardiff University of Wales, P.O. Box 906, Cardiff CF1 3YN, Wales, UK

Received 20 May 1998; accepted in revised form 14 October 1998

Key words: classifications, consumer behaviour, retail outlets, shopping centres

Abstract
This paper reviews current methods used in classifying retail outlets and areas devoted to retailing, in the geographical
and town planning literature. For retail outlets, classifications based upon types of goods sold, and types of shopping trip,
are discussed. This is followed by an analysis of modern large store development which reflects property developers’ and
retailers’ concerns. Areas devoted to retail uses are subdivided into unplanned ‘retail areas’ and planned ‘shopping centres’.
Traditional classifications based upon central place theory are reviewed for both of these types, and found wanting in the light
of recent changes in retail development practice and consumer behaviour. Classifications based upon physical development
characteristics and type of shopping trip are recommended. Finally, classifications of urban retail location are examined.

Introduction shopping developments in the various countries concerned

A familiar issue in geographical studies of retail devel-
opment and change is the classification of retail outlets.
Classification is essential as a means of understanding and
analysing relationships in the world of retailing. The inten-
tion in this paper is however not to revive the rather arid
debates about ‘central place’ systems typical of retail geog-
raphy up to the 1980s (e.g. Christaller, 1966; Berry, 1967;
Beavon, 1977; Beaujeu-Garnier and Delobez, 1979), al-
though these matters will be referred to in passing. Instead,
the treatment of classifications is founded largely in the more
recent geographical literature relating to three aspects of re-
tailing: consumer behaviour and choice; retailer strategy;
and property development and town planning (e.g. Bromley
and Thomas, 1993; Brown, 1992; Davies, 1976, 1984; Guy,
1980, 1994; Jones and Simmons, 1990; O’Brien and Harris,
1991; Wrigley and Lowe, 1996).
Why is it necessary to classify retail outlets? Firstly, a
logical and appropriate classification should assist in sys-
tematic and well-informed discussions of research in retail
geography, whether of development trends, institutional in-
fluences, retailer behaviour or consumer behaviour. This
suggests in turn that the means of classification involved
should be influenced in some way by the perspective of the
researcher and the objectives of the research. For example,
when assessing elements of consumer behaviour in a partic-
ular region, the classification of retail outlets should respect
both common practice in that region and the main criteria
which shoppers use when choosing where to shop.
Secondly, a consistent and comprehensive classification
system allows researchers to compare and contrast empirical
findings across a variety of spaces, cultures and time periods.
It is easier, for example, to compare the impacts of differ-
ent land use planning systems on retail change if modern
are classified in a consistent way (Guy, 1998a). Consistency
is also important when one is analysing phenomena such as
retail internationalisation, or long-term changes in consumer
shopping behaviour within a region.
The paper proceeds as follows. The first major section
discusses what is meant by a retail outlet or ‘store’, and
then explores some methods of classification. These draw
upon established notions of consumer attitudes and retailing
organisation and method. The following section discusses
the more complex issue of classifying and defining ‘shop-
ping centres’. The question is addressed first of whether all
retail outlets are eligible for inclusion in systems of shop-
ping centres, or whether the term implies certain minimum
standards of size, internal organisation, planning or owner-
ship. Various ways in which centres have been classified are
then discussed, moving from ‘classical’ central place sys-
tems to more recent approaches based upon aspects of retail
performance, consumer perceptions, development history
and location. Some classifications which attempt to combine
these dimensions are also examined. The final section em-
phasises that there is no one system of classification which
is universally applicable, even within one geographical area
and time period.
Retail outlets – definitions and classifications
A retail outlet can be defined as a building from which retail-
ing is carried out. In order to exclude buildings concerned
solely with mail order sales, etc. a retail outlet should nor-
mally store retail goods which can be sold to members of the
public from the premises, without prior appointment. While
this general principle is widely accepted, variations can still
occur in practice. For example, in the United States, motor
256
Table 1. UK government classification of retail goods Table 2. UK government classification of retail businesses

Convenience goods Food retailers

Food Large grocery retailers
Alcoholic drink Other grocery retailers
Tobacco Dairymen
Other goods: Butchers, poulterers
newspapers and magazines Fishmongers
cleaning materials and matches Greengrocers, fruiterers
Bread and flour confectioners
Comparison goods
Clothing and Footwear Drink, confectionery and tobacco retailers
Do-it-yourself goods Retailers of confectionery, tobacco and newsagents
Household goods Off-licences
furniture, pictures, etc.
Clothing, footwear and leather goods retailers
carpets and other floor-coverings
Men’s and boys’ wear retailers
major appliances
Women’s, girls, children’s and infants’ wear retailers
textiles and soft furnishings
General clothing businesses
hardware
Footwear retailers
Recreational goods
Leather an travel goods retailers
radio, television and other durable goods
television and video hire Household goods retailers
sports goods, toys, games and camping equipment Household textiles retailers
other recreational goods Carpet retailers
books Furniture retailers
bicycles Electrical, gas and music goods retailers
Other goods Hardware, china and fancy goods retailers
pharmaceutical products and medical equipment Do-it-yourself retailers
toilet articles and perfumery Other non-food retailers
jewellery, silverware, watches and clocks Chemists
other goods Newsagents and stationers
Booksellers
Source: Unit for Retail Planning Information (1994).
Photographic goods retailers
Toys, hobby, cycle and sports goods retailers
Florists, nurserymen and seedsmen
vehicle sales are included in data relating to retail outlets,
Non-food retailers (not elsewhere specified)
whereas this is not the case in the UK. Some sources may
include within ‘retailing’ certain consumer services which Mixed Retail Businesses
do not always involve the physical transfer of goods, such as Large mixed businesses
hairdressing or travel agency. Other mixed businesses
In classifying retail outlets, several systems have been General mail order houses
used, each relating to some physical or economic character- Hire and repair businesses
istic. Four of the most common are discussed below. Television hire businesses
Other hire or repair
Classification by type of goods
Source: Business Statistics Office (1992, Table 2).
A classification in everyday use relates to the types of goods
sold by retail outlets. Many widely recognised types of shops
sell coherently organised ‘bundles’ of goods, such as furni- sources of hybrid categories such as ‘variety store’ or ‘large
ture or shoes. A typical official classification of such bundles mixed retailer’. The classification of ‘retail businesses’ in
of goods is shown in Table 1. use until recently in the UK is based mainly upon types of
This approach causes problems however when shops sell goods sold, but also includes some hybrid categories (Ta-
a variety of goods which apparently have little in common. ble 2). A further problem with this type of listing is that
For example the modern food superstore (in the UK) or hy- some goods are sold by several types of retailer: for ex-
permarket (France) might sell cooking utensils, children’s ample, newspapers are typically sold in Britain by ‘large
clothing, and compact discs as well as the food and groceries grocery retailers’, ‘retailers of confectionery, tobacco and
which are its main type of merchandise. The store might also newsagents’, ‘newsagents and stationers’, and ‘booksellers’,
offer services such as a pharmacy, post office, cafe, banking using categories listed in Table 2.
or dry cleaning. Other shops may deliberately sell as wide a Another general problem with goods-based classifica-
variety of goods as can be achieved in the space available, tions is that any one category of outlets may include dis-
ranging from the humble ‘corner shop’ to the mighty depart- parate types of shop which are regarded as dissimilar by the
ment store such as Harrods. This leads to the use in official general public and are not really in competition with one

another; for example, Fortnum and Mason (luxury foods),
a Sainsbury store (mainstream groceries), a Netto store
(limited range discount) and an independent greengrocery
(specialist fresh foods) may all be included in a category of
‘food stores’.
Classification by shopping trip purpose
For many years a distinction has been made in the mar-
keting literature between shopping trips which are intended
for purchasing routine necessities and those which are more
occasional in nature and directed more towards personal
gratification. The well-known classification of goods as con-
venience or comparison underpins Table 1. This distinction
has often been extended to shops (Brown, 1992, pp. 21–22).
Convenience goods have been defined as ‘goods which
the consumer usually purchases frequently, immediately and
with a minimum of effort’ (AMA, 1948). A convenience
outlet1 should therefore attract shopping trips which are
short in length and frequently made. The shopper uses the
store on a routine basis and may often know exactly what
he/she intends to purchase there. The supermarket is the
most obvious example, but other types of store which attract
routine trips from a mainly local catchment area, such as
fresh food shops, newsagents, tobacconists, chemists and
post offices are often classed as convenience outlets.
Comparison shopping has traditionally involved an el-
ement of personal gratification: comparing goods between
different shops is part of the process of choice, which is
made on the bases of ‘suitability, quality, price and style’
(AMA, 1948)2 . Comparison outlets are thus the destination
for occasional shopping trips, often carried out in family
or other groups, which are held to be more enjoyable than
routine convenience shopping. Traditionally the compari-
son outlet has been small in size and emphasised quality of
goods, awareness of fashions, and service to the shopper,
rather than a wide range of goods or low prices. Clothing,
footwear and personal accessories such as jewellery are the
most commonly cited forms of comparison outlet. Compar-
ison shopping has also for many years been associated with
the department store, which began to appear well over 100
years ago in major European and north American cities.
The notion that comparison shopping is somehow dis-
tinct from convenience shopping and that different types
of retail outlet are involved has nowadays become rather
problematic. Firstly it is not unreasonable to state that super-
market shopping for weekly family food supplies involves
comparisons on the bases of ‘suitability, quality, price and
style’. Secondly, it is often the case nowadays that compar-
ison shopping takes place within one large specialist outlet
rather than between several small ones, as for example in
furniture or carpet retailing.
1 The term ‘convenience outlet’ is used here rather than ‘convenience store’,
since the latter term has a more precise meaning in the English-language
literature: a small store (sales area typically 100–200 m2 ) selling a variety
of convenience goods and services to a local catchment population.
2 The American Marketing Association actually used the term ‘shopping
goods’ in this connection, but this term has (ironically) gone out of fashion.
257
Arguably one could dispense altogether with the idea of
the ‘comparison outlet’ and instead use a distinction based
upon motivation for purchases. For example one can eas-
ily distinguish ‘household goods’, which are needed for
home improvement and maintenance, from ‘personal goods’
which are bought for purposes of self-improvement or grat-
ification. Examples of the former are home improvement
goods and furniture; of the latter, clothing, footwear, books
and CDs. Household goods are nowadays often bought in
large free-standing stores, known as retail warehouses in
the UK (Hillier Parker, 1994) and fachmarkts in Germany
(Kulke, 1996), where a very wide range of brands and styles
are available. The shopping process might still be described
as ‘comparison’, but the methods of display and in-store
service which have proved so successful in the convenience
sector are applied. Personal goods, on the other hand, still
tend to be sold in smaller stores, often grouped together to
aid the process of comparison. The terms household shop-
ping and personal/fashion shopping are thus used in this
paper.
Classification by size and type of store
One of the most discussed features of retailing in the last 40
years or so has been the development of large stores, usually
selling either convenience or household goods. These stores,
which are generally on one level and provided with ample
car parking space, have grown up in the suburban areas of
many north American and European cities: in convenience
retailing, the supermarket, superstore and hypermarket3 ;
in household goods retailing, the retail warehouse or fach-
markt, also known as ‘non-food superstore’ or ‘big box
store’. These terms all denote a certain simplicity in store
construction and design: building and maintenance costs
need to be kept low, and the interior functions rather like a
warehouse with priority given to clear signposting and ease
of restocking the display shelves.
A problem with much of the recent literature in retail
geography is that when discussing types of store it reviews a
limited number of large purpose-built outlets while ignoring
the more traditional small retail outlet. These are much too
varied in nature to fall into one category of ‘small shop’. If
we attempt to relate shop type and size to the typology of
shopping trips discussed above, then the role of small shops
becomes clearer. An attempt to classify retail outlets along
these lines is shown in Table 3.
Any classification by size, such as that employed in Ta-
ble 3, can however be problematic. For example, should
one use sales area (also known in the UK as net floor area),
or total floor area (gross area or gross lettable area)? Food
retailers tend to provide information based upon sales area
whereas shopping centre developers and owners usually pro-
vide gross area data. Ways in which ‘net’ and ‘gross’ area
are themselves defined can vary. Generally, sales area is
more indicative of the volume of merchandise in a store, but
3 In most European countries the term ‘hypermarket’ is used instead of su-
perstore, and statistical sources generally use the term for any food store
of over 2500 m2 sales area.
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Table 3. Examples of shop types classified by trip purpose and size
Sales area (m2 ) Convenience
shopping
Under 250 Convenience store
Butcher
Pharmacy
250–1000 Small supermarket
1000–2500 Large supermarket
Over 2500 Hypermarket
is often difficult to measure. Gross area can be measured
(approximately) from large-scale maps.
Classification by size also implies the use of arbitrary
boundaries. For example, hypermarkets are generally recog-
nised in Europe as having a lower limit of 2500 m2 sales
area, but in Germany a lower limit of 1500 m2 is some-
times used. In the UK, a lower limit for food superstores
(the equivalent of hypermarkets) of 25 000 ft2 (2323 m2 ) is
often used.
Classification by Store Ownership
Another common method of classifying retail outlets is ac-
cording to the means of ownership. The simplest distinction
is between independent and multiple retailers, the former
owning one shop (or a small number of shops), and the latter
owning several or many shops. The dividing line between
the two categories often varies according to the country
concerned or even the statistical series used. Intermediate
categories involving affiliation to a particular supplier, or
franchising, complicate the situation. The status of the co-
operative movement is not clear – it may sometimes have its
own category in retail classifications.
Nevertheless, store ownership type is a vital dimension in
retail geography. In European statistical series the following
classification is used (Euromonitor, 1996):
• Co-operatives.
• Department and Variety Stores, and Mail Order.
• Multiples.
• Voluntary Associations and Buying Groups.
• Non-affiliated Independents.
In some cases, ‘multiples’ may further subdivided, as in
the UK where a distinction is made between retail firms with
10 or more outlets (‘large multiple retailers’), and those with
2-10 outlets (‘small multiple retailers’) (Business Statistics
Office, 1992, Table 2).
Classifications of retail outlets – conclusions
It is now clear that several means have been used by geogra-
phers and planners to classify retail outlets. Some systems
are fully inclusive while others are not. Some generally
recognised types of outlet imply a number of dimensions of
Household Personal/fashion
shopping shopping
Fashion boutique
Shoe shop
Hardware store Bookshop
Video hire Sports goods shop
Retail warehouse
Fachmarkt
Retail warehouse Department store
classification, for example the food superstore or hypermar-
ket, which can be defined by its range of merchandise, own-
ership type, size and internal design, or some combination
of these attributes.
For most purposes, particularly examinations of retail
structure at national or local level, a classification based
upon types of goods sold seems most appropriate. This can
with advantage be grouped according to shopping trip pur-
pose, as suggested in Table 3. In many investigations, a
second dimension, probably ownership type or size, needs
to be used.
Shopping centres: definitions and classifications
Classifying shopping centres is a much more complex and
uncertain business. Indeed, much of the debate in retail ge-
ography up to about the end of the 1970s was concerned
with definitions and classifications of ‘shopping centres’,
‘business centres’, ‘retail areas’, etc. An initial problem in
empirical work is often to define the physical limits of a par-
ticular centre, or indeed to decide whether a group of shops
is a ‘centre’ at all. One school of thought is that the term
shopping centre should be applied to any group of shops,
whether old, new, planned, unplanned, purpose-built or con-
verted. The opposite view is that the term should be confined
to planned, purpose-built retail development (as for example
in texts such as Dawson, 1983; Dawson and Lord, 1985). In
this paper this view is accepted, and unplanned clusters of
retail outlets are referred to as retail areas.
Classifications of retail areas: the central place hierarchy
Unplanned retail areas have typically grown in a haphazard
manner, often through gradual conversion from other land
uses. An unplanned area is likely to have a multiplicity of
property owners, and to consist of many separate buildings
which are varied in physical appearance. Unplanned retail
areas have generally developed in two ways. In the historic
centres of towns, they have grown from origins as periodic
markets. In suburban areas, they have grown through con-
versions of residential or other property, in order to serve

Table 4. Classification of central areas in UK, 1989
Grade Multiple branch Number of Cumulative
score centres total
I National 186 1 1
II Metropolitan 93–132 6 7
IIIA Major regional 35–74 99 106
IIIB Minor regional 25–34 60 166
IVA Major district 6–24 290 456
IVB Minor district 2–5 370 826
Source: Reynolds and Schiller (1992), Table 3.
neighbouring areas with convenience or occasionally com-
parison goods (see Guy, 1994a, Chapter 6 for a more detailed
discussion).
Much effort has been expended by geographers in clas-
sifying such retail areas. Typically such classifications have
attempted to relate retail and business areas to their catch-
ment population. Broadly speaking, two geographical scales
are used in this type of analysis: firstly, national or regional;
secondly, urban.
National or regional classifications are made in an at-
tempt to determine the relative status of central shopping
areas (town or city centres). Each area is classified according
to some index of retail ‘size’ or ‘importance’. Volume of
non-food sales would be a typical indicator. If such data
are not available for recent years, as in the UK, ‘points’
systems have to be used. An example is the system used
by the consultants Hillier Parker in the UK which awards
‘points’ according to the number of major non-food mul-
tiples’ outlets located within the central area (Schiller and
Jarrett, 1985; Reynolds and Schiller, 1992). It is then neces-
sary to allocate central areas to ‘levels’ in the classification.
The classification and associated points score used in these
papers is shown in Table 4.
While there are always some problems in this kind of
analysis, particularly relating to definitions of ‘levels’ or
‘grades’ in the classification, the use of central place analysis
at national level is relatively straightforward.
In contrast, use of central place analysis within urban
areas has been rather problematic. It was pioneered in the
late 1950s by a group of geographers working in the United
States (e.g. Berry, 1963). A sequence of local centre, neigh-
bourhood centre, district centre and town or city centre was
commonly recognised4 (see Table 5). In Britain and else-
where, town planners used such classifications in respect
of both existing retail areas and future planned centres (e.g.
Burns, 1959).
Berry’s (1963) analysis of Chicago was probably the
most detailed and sophisticated of its type during this pe-
riod. As well as recognising a hierarchy of unplanned retail
and business areas, it also suggested hierarchies of (a) busi-
ness ribbons located largely on major highways, and (b)
planned centres. Berry also designated separate hierarchies
in ‘high-income’ and ‘low-income’ areas of the city.
4 At that time, the term ‘centre’ was commonly used for what this paper
terms ‘retail areas’.
259
Such analyses must however be criticised on several
grounds. Firstly, designation of a hierarchy suggests that
there are clear distinguishing characteristics for each level,
when in fact empirical analysis suggests that a continuum
exists between small and large retail areas within most cities
(e.g. Davies, 1974; Potter, 1981). Secondly, retail and ser-
vice ‘ribbons’, particularly in European towns, have usually
grown to serve the needs of adjacent communities rather than
those of highway users, as Berry appeared to suggest.
A third criticism, posed by Davies (1984), Dawson and
Sparks (1986), and other writers, is that large modern retail
stores which are specialised in purpose, such as hypermar-
kets and retail warehouses, serve fairly extensive catchment
areas and are difficult to fit into conventional hierarchies of
retail areas. This is because, compared with traditional retail
areas of comparable size, they attract shoppers from a wider
catchment area but take a smaller market share. This reflects
their overwhelming reliance on private car travel, and the
notion that car users are less likely to discriminate between
shopping opportunities solely on the basis of travel distance.
Many surveys have shown that consumer choice of shop-
ping destination reflects several qualities, such as variety of
goods, price of goods, cleanliness, spaciousness and security
of the centre, and quality and quantity of car parking provi-
sion, for example. Central place theory, which relies mainly
upon distance as a choice criterion, becomes inadequate in
this situation.
Classifications of shopping centres by size and function
As mentioned above, the central place model has also been
used to classify purpose-built shopping centres. This is more
typical in north America, where planned centres rather than
retail areas are the norm in most urban areas. Neighbourhood
and community centres serve local residential populations
and predominantly feature convenience shops, whereas re-
gional centres provide a much wider range of goods and
services and are located close to major road intersections in
order to serve a larger catchment population.
Just as the central place model of retail areas is now seen
as inadequate, so is the equivalent north American model
of suburban shopping centres. Although some types of large
stores such as supermarkets, discount stores (e.g. WalMart),
and ‘junior department stores’ are probably located within
planned centres to a greater extent than is found in Europe,
others such as specialist non-food stores and club discount
stores have tended to locate along major highways to form
sprawling ‘retail strips’ (Lord and Guy, 1991). More re-
cently, an important trend in north American retailing has
been for these ‘big box’ stores to cluster into large-scale
power centres (Toderian, 1996), similar in nature to the
British retail parks which are discussed below. These cen-
tres are possibly of regional scale in terms of population
catchment, but have a much more limited range of goods
compared with regional shopping centres.
A second problem occurs, similar to that referred to
above in connection with hierarchies of urban retail areas.
Planned centres are typically evaluated by consumers on
bases such as price, ‘atmosphere’, quality of goods sold, or
260
Table 5. A typology of unplanned retail areas in British towns

Retail area Catchment area Shop numbers and types

Central area Whole town, plus surrounding
suburbs and rural areas
District centre Inner urban or suburban area of
20 000–50 000 population
Neighbourhood Residential area of about
centre 10 000 population
Local centre Immediately surrounding area
of 500–5000 population
Over 100; mainly personal and
fashion goods
50–100; convenience, house-
hold and personal goods
20–40; convenience and some
household goods
1–10; convenience goods

Source: adapted from Guy (1994a) Table 6.1.

adequacy of car parking. Many research studies have linked
particular centres to particular social groups in the catchment
area (e.g. McGoldrick and Thompson, 1992).
Classification of shopping centres by physical form
A different approach to classifying shopping centres lies
in their physical characteristics such as appearance, tenant
mix, and size. The advantage of this descriptive approach
is that it employs some of the criteria which shopping cen-
tre developers use in describing and evaluating shopping
centre proposals. It also matches criteria which consumers
often use in identifying shopping destinations and choosing
between them.
It may be useful first to provide simple descriptions of
the main forms of modern shopping centre development in
north America and western Europe:
(i) The Focused Centre. These have typically been built
to serve surrounding residential areas with convenience
shopping needs, and consist of a supermarket, hyper-
market or (in north America) discount department store
plus some small shop units. They are often known as lo-
cal centres or neighbourhood centres in north America;
as district centres in the UK and centres intercommu-
naux in France (Reynolds, 1993).
(ii) The Retail Park. These schemes are usually built in off-
centre locations. They consist of several large stores
selling a wide range of bulky ‘household goods’ such
as furniture, washing machines, DIY materials, etc.
More recently, retail parks in the UK have begun to sell
clothing, shoes and other personal/fashion goods (Guy,
1998b).
The retail park has been defined in physical terms as:
‘. . . at least 50 000 ft2 gross lettable retail area, and built
and let as a retail entity. It should be sited outside the
town centre and contain at least three retail warehouses,
defined as single storey retail units of at least 10 000 ft2 .
It should also include some purpose built pedestrian area
or joint car parking facilities’ (Hillier Parker, 1994).
The stores within a retail park may be physically sepa-
rate, or joined together, or a mixture of the two styles.
Some retail parks include leisure uses such as cinemas
or indoor bowling arenas.
(iii) The Shopping Mall is in effect contained in one very
large building, although some of the internal spaces may
not be roofed over. Its lower size limit is often taken to
be 10 000 m2 of gross retail area. It includes one or more
large ‘anchor stores’ (department or variety stores), sev-
eral (often over 50) smaller retail units, and (in larger
and more recent centres) a food court, and leisure uses
such as cinema or ice rink. Such centres attempt to
replicate the amount and variety of shopping space in
long-established central shopping areas. Small compar-
ison goods shops selling clothing, footwear, leisure and
luxury items are particularly important, and help dis-
tinguish the centre from retail parks and other types of
centre.
(iv) The Regional Shopping Centre is a large shopping mall,
built in a free-standing position rather than as part of
an existing central area. The lower size limit to this
type of centre is often stated as 500 000 ft2 (as in Guy,
1994b), but limits as low as 30 000 m2 have been used
(e.g. in Reynolds, 1993). Very large centres of over
about 800 000 ft2 (known in north America as super-
regional centres) are usually built on two levels, in order
to reduce the total land take of the centre and to shorten
the amount of walking which shoppers have to carry out
within the centre itself. In such a centre, the major stores
will probably trade from both floors.
(v) The Factory Outlet Centre is similar physically to a rel-
atively small shopping mall but has no anchor store.
The outlets sell price discounted goods and are usually
managed by manufacturing or wholesale organisations.
The purpose is to sell surplus goods such as ends of
ranges, outdated fashions, slightly imperfect specimens,
etc. (Fernie, 1995; Fernie and Fernie, 1997).
(vi) The Speciality Centre may resemble a modern shop-
ping mall or may be converted from one or more old
buildings. There is no anchor store, and the retail out-
lets (mainly owned by independents) tend to specialise
either in one type of goods or in goods designed for a
visitor/tourist market. The term festival marketplace has
been used for some examples, mainly in north America,
which have particularly strong tourist appeal.
A classification which includes these types of centre is
shown in Figure 1. The two main criteria used are physical
(one building or several), and the composition of the centre,
in terms of the number of buildings or the number of oc-
cupiers. This classification is closely related to developers’
perceptions in the following ways.

Figure 1. Retail development: a typology based on physical characteristics. Source: adapted from Guy (1994, Table 2.4).
The physical composition of a centre reflects the cen-
tre’s main type of appeal for shoppers. A centre which
consists of separate buildings, or a simple row of stores
connected by an open walkway, is relatively cheap to con-
struct but lacks visual appeal and character. This type of
centre is often intended to emphasise low prices and con-
venience for the shopper. Typical centres of this type are
neighbourhood and community centres, which are gen-
erally destinations for convenience shopping; and retail
parks and factory outlet centres, which are destinations for
household and comparison shopping. On the other hand,
shopping malls emphasise quality, luxury and atmosphere,
especially if climate-controlled. They are destinations for
personal/fashion shopping trips which are made for purposes
of enjoyment rather than for purchasing essential items.
The epitome in this respect is the north American super-
regional centre, or the tourist-oriented multi-level shopping
‘complex’ or ‘emporium’ found in large cities in south-east
Asia.
Classification by centre ownership and tenancy
arrangements
Another important issue to the developer is the nature of the
retail occupiers and the types of tenancy agreement with the
centre’s owners. A free-standing store, such as a hypermar-
ket, is often owned by the retailer concerned. At the other
extreme, the super-regional centre is likely to be owned by
a major national or international property company, and the
individual shops are leased to retailers. The major anchors
for the centre (stores which are important enough to gen-
erate large numbers of trips in their own right, and which
thus generate trade for other retailers) are likely to benefit
from long leasehold ownership and will pay far lower rents
per ft2 or m2 than the smaller units (Guy, 1994a, pp. 164–
166). Such stores include department stores, or, in smaller
centres, variety stores or hypermarkets. Between the owner-
ship arrangements of the free-standing hypermarket and the
super-regional centre lie various stages. The focused centre
is often owned by the hypermarket operator concerned. The
retail park or factory outlet centre is typically owned by a
property company, and all the retail occupiers will hold sim-
261
ilar leases as none of them is powerful enough to be able to
attract preferential terms.
This suggests a classification which is shown in Figure 2.
Classification by retail offer or trip purpose
The simple classifications discussed so far do not provide a
full explanation. For example, retail parks and factory outlet
centres are similar in terms of size and ownership, but in
fact offer different types of merchandise and serve different
consumer markets.
This indicates that a classification of shopping centres
based upon types of shopping trip, as discussed earlier in this
paper, may be worth exploring. Thus, convenience shopping
trips are related largely to centres anchored by supermarkets
or other large food stores. Household shopping trips are re-
lated most strongly to retail warehouse parks although they
may also involve use of more traditional types of urban sub-
centre. Personal/fashion shopping involves a greater amount
of window-shopping and comparison behaviour, hence is
typically associated with town centres or shopping malls. In
north America and to some extent the UK, personal shopping
may also take place in off-centre department stores and retail
parks, where these sell personal goods (Guy, 1998b).
Two further categories of shopping behaviour, not pre-
viously considered, need to be added at this point. The
shopping centre industry is increasingly aware of the recre-
ational aspects of consumer shopping trips. Similarly, the
tourist industry is increasingly using retail sales to boost its
profitability. Specialist types of shopping centre which delib-
erately encourage ‘leisure shopping’ include factory outlet
centres and festival marketplaces.
Secondly, a type of shopping behaviour characteristic of
commuters and travellers needs to be considered. This is the
purchase of either convenience items needed at home, or
items needed on a journey, such as newspapers and books.
This ‘incidental’ shopping is associated with ancillary shops
which range from small kiosks at railway stations to almost
full-scale shopping malls built in some international airport
terminals.
262
Figure 2. Retail development: a typology based on ownership characteristics.
Classifications of retail locations
The final question which concerns retail geographers and
analysts is the location of a store or centre. The location
of a specific retail development implies a unique relation-
ship with the local residential population, and a competitive
stance relative to other retailing in the area. More generally,
however, it is useful to distinguish certain broad types of lo-
cation. This helps both to categorise retail areas or shopping
centres, and to analyse locational decisions of developers
and retailers.
Intra-urban retail locations
The locational context for retail development has particu-
lar significance for land use planning, where the supposed
problems of ‘out-of-town’ or ‘off-centre’ development are
constantly debated (Guy, 1998a). In this context, the UK
government has adopted the following classification of retail
locations within urban areas:
• Edge-of-centre: ‘For shopping purposes, a location
within easy walking distance (ie. 200–300 m) of the
primary shopping area . . . ’
• Out-of-centre: ‘A location that is clearly separate from a
town centre, but not necessarily outside the urban area’
• Out-of-town: ‘An out-of-centre development on a green-
field site, or on land not clearly within the current ur-
ban boundary’. (Department of the Environment, 1996:
Annex A.)
For geographical as well as planning purposes, it is im-
portant to be aware of the ways in which retail development
is related to the use made of land in its vicinity. New retailing
may replace other land uses (such as industrial), and may
also serve an adjoining residential area. In this respect the
following classification builds on the above to express the
various possibilities for location within typical urban areas:
• Town centre: the historic central retail core of a town,
possibly including modern shopping malls.
• Edge of town centre: an area characterised mainly by
non-retail land uses but within easy walking distance of
the retail core.
• Other retail area (unplanned): this refers to traditional
suburban retail areas and ribbon developments.
Table 6. Types of shopping centre related to location
Type of centre TC ETC ORA OU NRA ET
Free-standing store X X X X
Focused centre X X X
Retail park X X
Shopping mall X X X
Regional centre X X
Speciality centre X X X
Factory outlet centre X X
Key: TC, town centre; ETC, edge of town centre; ORA, other retail area
(unplanned); OU, other urban (e.g. industrial, waterfront); NRA, new
residential area; ET, edge-of-town; X, signifies that this type of centre is
likely to be found in this type of location.
Source: Adapted from Guy (1994a), Table 2.9.
• Other urban: any urban area with some form of ex-
isting commercial development, usually industrial or
waterfront but in some cases retail.
• New residential area: usually edge-of-town.
• Edge-of-town: a site originally rural in nature or bounded
by rural land.
In Table 6 a simple analysis is made of relationships
between these locational types and certain types of mod-
ern retail development. The table shows which types have
been built in which locations within the last 20 years or so
in western European countries. Current western European
legal restrictions and land use planning policies would now
preclude some of these options, such as regional shopping
centres in edge-of-town locations (Guy, 1998a).
‘Non-hierarchical’ classifications of locations
An alternative approach to classifying retail locations lies in
an analysis of their form and function. The starting point
is Berry’s (1963) classification, already discussed, which
combined planned shopping centres and unplanned retail
areas. This has however been criticised by Brown (1991,
p. 374) on two grounds: firstly, because of its reliance on
the now outdated notion of the central place hierarchy; and
secondly, because of confusion between physical and func-
tional characteristics, as for example in the ‘automobile
row’, which is both shopping ribbon and specialised area,
although classified as the latter.
 263
Table 7. Non-hierarchical classification of retail locations

Function

Form General Specialist Ancillary

Cluster (unplanned) Town centres and ‘Cafe quarter’ Sandwich bars in

suburban retail financial district
areas
Cluster (planned) Shopping malls Factory outlet centre Shops in airport
Retail parks Festival marketplace departure lounge

Linear Traditional ‘Ethnic’ shopping Shops in pedestrian

shopping ribbons street subway

Isolated Corner shop Retail warehouse Newspaper stall

Hypermarket

Source: Adapted from Brown (1991, Figure 2).

Table 8. Some dimensions used in retail classifications

From these arguments Brown (1991) develops a ‘non-
hierarchical’ classification of retail locations. Table 7 depicts Dimension Typical categories
this classification and includes many of the types of retail
area and shopping centre referred to in this paper. The two Goods sold Food store, ladies’ wear shop
dimensions of this classification are physical form (clus- Trip purpose Convenience, household, personal/fashion
tered, linear or isolated); and function (general, specialist Size of store Supermarket, hypermarket
Store ownership Independent, multiple, franchisee
or ancillary). This classification has some appeal in that the
Catchment area Neighbourhood centre, district centre
physical characteristics are easily identifiable from large-
Physical form Cluster, linear
scale maps or a geographical information system, and the
Development history Planned, unplanned
functional characteristics are identifiable from superficial
Development type Retail park, regional shopping centre
observation. However, it is less useful than that shown in Function General, specialist, ancillary
Table 6 in analysing development trends, as it does not Location Town centre, edge of town
fully correspond with the criteria used by the development
industry or by town planners.

Conclusions been accessible within urban areas. It has been necessary

This paper has reviewed many of the methods used by retail
geographers and other analysts in classifying retail outlets,
retail areas and shopping centres. The detailed discussion
has been largely of systems of classification used in the UK
and north America, but the broad approaches are commonly
used throughout developed countries.
It is clear that until recently classification relied largely
upon two rather simplistic notions about consumer shopping
behaviour. The first of these was the distinction between
convenience and comparison trips: this distinction was held
to be self-evident and clearly related to types of shops.
Recent trends, including the growth of large mixed retail
businesses, and of recreational or ‘leisure’ shopping, have
rendered the convenience/comparison distinction less valid
as a means of classifying retail goods and outlets.
The second notion was that consumers would tend to buy
the goods required (convenience or comparison) at the near-
est available retail area or shopping centre. This assumption,
which underlies central place theory, is clearly incorrect for
many actual shopping trips since other determinants of shop-
ping choice are also important. The position since the 1960s
has been that many different shopping opportunities, distin-
guished by environmental quality, parking facilities, price
structures and other criteria as well as size and location have
thus to devise classification systems which incorporate (at
least by proxy) some if not all of these variables.
The most successful way of doing this, which also re-
flects the decision criteria used by retail property developers,
is to involve either a more sophisticated classification of
shopping trips, or some type of simple description of the
built form of the shopping destination concerned. These no-
tions underlie most of the classifications discussed in this
paper. These are summarised in Table 8.
Although classifications have become better related to
the main determinants of retailer and consumer behaviour,
it would incorrect to insist that one system of classification
should be used in preference to another. There are two im-
portant issues here. Firstly, a compromise always has to be
found between comprehensiveness and simplicity. Too many
categories make analysis and interpretation difficult; too few
can obscure essential insights. Secondly, the means of clas-
sification should partly at least relate to the purpose of the
research exercise. For example, a researcher analysing shop-
ping destination choices from the results of a travel survey
should be aware that an ‘evoked set’ of outlets or shopping
centres from which shoppers make their choices should be
defined with respect to a particular combination of location
and trip purpose. This suggests use of trip categories (as in
Table 3 of this paper) to classify outlets or shopping centres.
264
For these reasons, no attempt is made in this paper to
recommend a ‘best’ system of classification. Table 8 sum-
marises the main dimensions used in practice to construct
classifications. A categorisation appropriate to any partic-
ular study might be achieved through the use of two or
three of these dimensions. Some such combinations have
been discussed in this paper, but others are feasible. It is
arguable also that systems may have to change in order to
accommodate new forms of retailing as they emerge.
Most academic papers end with a call for further research
to be made into some relevant topic. Mere classification of
the spatial characteristics of retailing is not perhaps a topic
for research in its own right, unless related to some more
substantive research issue. However, one approach which
has been missing in this paper would be concerned with
consumers’ own images and perceptions of shopping oppor-
tunities: the classifications discussed have emanated from
deterministic ‘rules’ of shopping behaviour, or from per-
ceptions of property developers and town planners. There
is a need to consider the dimensions which shoppers them-
selves use to differentiate shopping opportunities. Are these
related more to the shops contained within retail areas and
shopping centres, to physical descriptors of these areas and
centres, or to the type of shopping trip involved and the
way in which this expresses other personal and household
characteristics? Out of such research might emerge a more
simple and universal means of classifying retail stores and
shopping centres.
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