Nowadays there is an increasing trend of big shopping centres opening up while small shops are closing down. What are the advantages and disadvantages of big shopping centres versus small local shops?

It is widely observed that current consumers tend to visit huge Malls for their buys

instead

of local

stores

. As a consequence, the local market is facing a financial crisis and the corresponding

stores

cannot stand out. The aforementioned issue is controversial and both positive and negative aspects will be discussed in

this

essay. On the one hand, it could be argued that there are many benefits for consumers in finding easily a variety of products at special prices inside the giant marketplaces. Indeed, a Mall consists of several different

stores

providing a plethora of products of previous seasons at affordable prices to gain not only consumers' attention but

also

to be more competitive . More particular,

stores

inside the enormous centres handle the stock items all over the year since they can immediately access their logistics chain.

Therefore

, buyers can achieve discounts and beneficial deals.

For example

, the

stores

in Metro mall in Athens offer every

second

Saturday a discount of 15% for any return customer.

On the other hand

, the abandonment of local

stores

is strongly related to the increase in unemployment rates. To be more precise, in a regional shop apart from the payment of employees is occurred transactions via a number of professionals of the neighbourhood,like local accountants, technicians e.t.c.

That is

to ,say since a store in a neighbourhood is forced to close, there is a domino effect on the whole local economy.

This

can be clearly illustrated by the projections of recent business research forecasting that after the opening of the upcoming "shops in a shop" concept mall in the Athenian north suburbs would be fired around 650 employees of the local businesses due to low demand. In conclusion,

although

the system of the free market and the multinational companies will expand the erection of the shopping malls in the near future, I insist on the superiority to protect the local business, since it is a crucial factor in the domestic economy.

Therefore

, the state and the ministry of finance should state a business law system offering extra benefits for the opening of a local store.