Analysis of products demand on EU markets based on commerce activity of large stores

Retail in large store-chains extended in well-developed countries. 465 millions inhabitants express their supply on their markets; between 2000 and 2005 sales values were increasing; the increase-sources were the promotional prices, as well as the European buyers' availability to respond to the supply's diversity. After the political events that happened after 1989, in Romania appeared large hypermarket-chains and supermarket-chains, most of them being transnational companies that developed their own business in our country. Due to these commercial-units, the retail-value in Romania grew in a spectacular way, with more than 85% during 2000-2005 period, although from the retail-value per inhabitant point of view, we are far behind other European countries' level. The number of retail-commercial units, as well as the sales-purchasing value in these units characterizes the commercial sector situation in a country. For a comparative analysis at territorial level, for different European Union's countries, we will realize a multicriterial hierarchy, based on the two statistical indicators previously mentioned, and on other two general macroeconomic indicators: Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per inhabitant and unemployment-rate. The main European Union's countries hierarchy based on the four criteria was realized by two statistical methods: the ranks' method and the relative-distance method from the maximum performance unit.