The term encompasses all the manifestations of the retail trade in a given territory. It means that whether downtown businesses and those in the shopping centers or big boxes, motorway zones, neighborhoods or peripheries of urban boundaries form a mass of territorial affairs.

Each of the commercial zones carries with it its share of stakes, constraints, and potential for development as well. In some cases, a commercial zone will be made up of unrelated establishments; in other cases, it will be a business theme where the complementarity between businesses favors cross-traffic of shoppers. Some areas will be very physically scattered. Some areas will be interspersed with a variety of other uses, making it difficult to identify a vocation, while others will form a dense and compact group.
The commercial forms on the ground are numerous and represent as many centers of commercial life at the rate of varied evolution and the development potential just as different. Although these differences may sometimes represent an identity of the place, they must nevertheless evolve within parameters associated with their trading area, which constitutes the dominant area of ​​origin of the customers. There are tags to optimize the value of each commercial area. As a corollary, there are also cases where it is necessary to correct situational conditions that undermine the quality of the business supply. A relevant reading of the commercial function inevitably involves an analysis of its structure and the assessment of the supply and demand balance. Any evaluation in business units or percentage representation of a sector over the total is only approximations of little value. A breakdown of the business offer in a geographical area allows to identify categories of offer and to emanate specific vocations.