Tools for integrated assessment of shopping zones in the city

The changes taking place in the sphere of trade services determine the relevance of allocation of trade zones in the city and, as a consequence, evaluation of trade space. In this regard, we should note the importance of using geo-information technologies to solve this problem. However, the visualization of location of trade objects on the map, as a rule, does not give real results in relation to the availability of retail trade areas for population. The applied approaches to the assessment of the distribution of trade objects do not fully reflect the qualitative component of the trade network, as indicators are calculated either for the city as a whole or for administrative districts that have different area and do not take into account the place of residence of the population. The identified shortcomings lead to the fact that there emerge certain gaps in achieving the balance of distribution of retail trade space, which can not be assessed, as well as the problems with the monitoring and further location of retail facilities. Reasonable distribution of retail space in the city enhances social efficiency of retail trade, which is manifested in the provision of the necessary goods and services to meet the needs of the population, territorial availability of retail facilities, creation of high-quality and modern conditions for customer service. In turn, the calculated quantitative distribution of retail space for the selected areas of commercial service is an important initial step in the organization of commercial space in the city. Therefore, the main purpose of this scientific article is to develop a methodology for the integrated assessment of the selected areas of trade services. Scientific novelty consists in the fact that the presented method is based on the comparison of the actual results of the calculated data with the recommended values; besides the paper helps identify the shortage and (or) surplus of retail space in the selected areas, make quantitative assessment of the situation concerning the concentration of retail space and its sufficiency for the population on the basis of data on the city of Minsk.