Consumer shopping behaviour in the Nitra city

Consumers shopping behaviour is an important sociological phenomenon seen as a manifestation of consuming way of live. Its character is largely influenced by the society in which the consumer uses goods and services. The rate of consumer behaviour is influenced by the availability of goods, sales culture, offer of sales concepts, real household income, lifestyle, and marketing activities of sellers. It affects not only the economy, but also it has significant social and cultural impacts. In specific cases, it also has an important spatial function in terms of catchment areas to the selected shopping centre. At present, shopping behaviour of the population directs towards a modern type. It is characterized by emotive purchases and a consumer is influenced e.g. by advertising, purchases discounted product, numerous purchases in a single day, has high demands on quality of goods and shopping comfort, optimizes the ratio between price and value of goods, prefers large-scale retail shops and regularly uses car for shopping. The paper presents the results of the behavioural survey in the city of Nitra in the category of personal consumer in 2014 with the aim to confirm the presupposition of the modern type of behaviour of the Nitra consumers. Keyword: stages of development of retail network, consumers shopping behaviour, catchment area of shopping centre JEL klasifikácia: D1, D3, R2, R3