Retail has played a major role world over in increasing productivity across a wide range of consumer goods and services. The impact can be best seen in countries like U.S.A., U.K., Mexico, Thailand and more recently China. Economies of countries like Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Sri Lanka and Dubai are also heavily assisted by the retail sector.

Retail is the second-largest industry in the United States both in number of establishments and number of employees. It is also one of the largest worldwide.