The current issue of M & M can be found at: www.managementmarketing.ro Correspondence: František Križan krizan@fns.uniba.sk Urban retail market in Bratislava (Slovakia): Consumers perception and classification of shopping centres František KRIŽAN Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovakia Kristína BILKOVÁ Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovakia Pavol KITA Economic University, Bratislava, Slovakia Abstract: The transformation of urban retail as well as the strong influence of globalization creates new sales formats, such as shopping centers. These represent a new form of contemporary retailing and have a significant impact on transformation and localization and also they influence the shopping behavior of consumers. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the retail industry in the city of Bratislava with a specific focus on shopping centers. The task of this paper is the identification of shopping centers in Bratislava, the spatial diversification and their classification by different aspects. For a more complete view of retailing in Bratislava the paper also focuses on the analysis of consumers’ preferences. Keywords: urban retailing, shopping centres, shopping preferences, Bratislava, GIS. Please cite this article as following: Križan, F., Bilková, K., Kita, P. (2014), “Urban retail market in Bratislava (Slovakia): Consumers perception and classification of shopping centres”, Management & Marketing. Challenges for the Knowledge Society, Vol. 9, No. 4, pp. 483‐500. Introduction At the turn of the new millennium there is an increasing economists’, geographers’, sociologists’ and also other specialists’ interest in retailing issues which is not random but it is related to the development dynamics and spatial variety of the tertiary sector. Retail is classified into the services sector which is nowadays the most important and most dynamically growing sector in the world’s economy (Birkin et al., 2002). Except for the quantitative increase of services, and thus retail, there are also dynamic qualitative changes. Processes linked with the transformation and globalization of the industry such as: liberalization, internationalization, concentration, cooperation, e‐commerce, etc. are among those which most intensely shape retail in the world today. These general trends are more significant in post‐communist countries after the transition to a free market economy (Frydman et al., 1994; Gielens and Dekimpe, 2007; Páll and Hunf, 2013; Ptáček and Szczyrba, 2007; Pommois, 2004;