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Distributive trade represents a significant economic activity within national economy that links and mediates between production and consumption. Its importance is commonly indicated by its contribution to the national GDP and labour force employment. Institutionally, distributive trade is conducted by distributive trade enterprises that act as intermediaries and facilitators of exchange process between producers and consumers in a channel of distribution. By carrying out their specific channel functions, distributive trade enterprises contribute to the fulfilment of the main purpose of distribution channel as well as of value network as a whole – to efficiently satisfy consumers’ needs by adding value through provision of time, place, possession and form utility. In this way, distributive trade directly interferes and influences people’s standard of living and quality of life. The purpose of the paper is to present research results on developments in distributive trade in Croatia and to compare them with those of developed European market economies.

The formal features of a retail business unit are subject to permanent changes. Starting from the detected regularities therein, this paper‘s objective is to enrich an informat ional basis for a detection of new, more adequate forms. The paper initially analyzes the formal features of retail business units and their changeability. Furthermore, it also specially emphasizes the changeability of environmental factors pertaining to a retail business unit (market and competit ion technology, institutional conditions, and the like). The meaning of retail business units‘ form is discussed from the point of view of certain companies and/or economic activit ies, as well as from the point of view of an overall economy in certain country. Namely, the forms of retail business units, integrated in value chains, exert a significant influence on overall economic trends in the aforesaid country. Thus, a responsibility for retail business units‘ formation is born not only by the retailing companies but also by the institutional factors. In the Republic of Croatia (as well as in most transitional countries), the poblems in the format ion of retail business units are quantitatively observed in a discrepancy between sale areas and a level of overall economic development, as well as in an uns atisfactory retail structure (concerning the forms of retail business units) and an unsatisfactory level of vertical interconnection between retail business units.

The ability of rapid inventory turnover indicates the success of a company in the use of their investments in inventory as a major business asset of the trading company. The inventory turnover expresses the speed at which the trading company sells its inventories or how much turnover the average inventory generates in one year. Also, the inventory turnover indicates how many times during a year the trading company is able to sell the amount of merchandise that matches its average inventory. The inventory turnover reflects how frequently a company flushes inventory from its system within a year. The inventory turnover greater than one indicates that the average inventory is sold in less than one year or it generates more than one turnover in a year. The inventory turnover can be calculated in two ways: as the rat io of the cost of goods sold for the reporting period and the average amount of inventory for that time period or by dividing sales revenue for the reporting period by the average amount of inventory for that time period. Furthermore, these ratios of inventory turnover have dfferent meanings for different trading firms. Therefore, the authors of this paper will explore how the se ratios affect the success of the trading companies. It will be investigated whether replacing one ratio with another ratio affects the interpretation of the success of the trading companies. Moreover, the relationship between these two ratios and the rate of return called the return on assets (ROA) will be investigated. Trading companies are divided according to the criterion of their size (large, medium-sized and small) and according to the criterion of the type of merchandise they sell (specialized and general consumer goods). The study included 28 large t rading companies, 30 medium-sized trading companies and 22 small trading companies, which altogether make a total of 80 companies from the Republic of Croatia . The data used in the study are based on the financial and accounting indicators for the year 2008 and the year 2009.

Location represents one of the five integrative areas of a supply chain management that refers to situating of facilit ies within a given space. Facilit ies of each supply chain member differ in the role one plays in supply chain and their objective function. As such, facility location problem solving accounts for different indices included into a model. Distribution centres are facilities of key importance for supply chain management. Proper location decision might add value and create value added that will significantly affect total logistics costs, service level and the whole value chain. An advanced pace in globalization, informat ion technology development and competition results in even faster changes of consumer needs and increased demand uncertainty. This imposes even more challenge for a good location models responsive to the specific needs of the supply chain as a whole. The aim of this paper is to provide a broad review of distribution centre location planning models from the perspective of supply chain design and to address issues these decisions have on environmental and resource utilization.

The importance of ecological production and ecological products has significantly increased during the last decade especially in the domain of food products. The main reason for this trend is increasing environmental and health awareness of consumers. The purpose of this study is to identify main determinants for the future development of ecological agriculture and all of its market dimensions in Croatia. To understand current state and perspectives for development of eco-food production in Croatia, the study investigates present trends on the eco-agricultural product market on both the demand and supply side. On the demand side, it is crucial to understand basic characteristics and present changes in consumers’ behavior, attitudes and preferences. From supply aspect, it is necessary to identify basic determinants and changes in the production process. Special attention was paid to distribution channels since distribution channels are often referred to as a key problem by eco-food producers in Croatia. Apart from supply and demand trends on the home market, the study analyzes main trends on the global market which directly or indirectly affect direction of eco-agriculture development in Croatia and perspectives of eco- food market. The paper puts forward the systematized overview of above mentioned trends in the “Eco-food market trends matrix” which has been developed for the purpose of this paper based on the analysis of strategic documents and relevant literature review. An additional, third dimension of the matrix is the dimension of expected future trends. This matrix can indicate strategies and marketing activities needed for optimization of marketing program for effective satisfaction of consumer needs and for fostering the undoubtedly desirable social change in the direction of greater demand (and consequently supply) of ecologically acceptable food. It also enables the recognition of main challenges and issues which need to be considered when designing strategies on macro level.