In both science and practice, the forms of retail offerings are typically categorized into so-called business types. Although these are of great importance for strategic retail management, there has been a lack of contributions in the literature that address this topic from the consumers' perspective. Based on a theoretical and empirical analysis, Guido Purper demonstrates that traditional classifications of business types are poorly suited to cover the consumer perspective, and he develops classification criteria that consumers actually use to categorize retail providers. Building on this, he develops his retail business types from the consumers' perspective.