Essence of Trade Enterprise Innovations

The article deals with the innovations in the development of enterprises' trade in terms of increasing competitiveness. The concept of innovation in trade has been specified, the classification of innovations in trade by different features has been presented. Essential characteristics of innovations in trade enterprises have been proven. The article aims at the study and generalization of scientific views on the economic essence of the concept of "innovations in trade," classification of innovations, analysis of innovations' value for intensive development of trade enterprises and determining perspective ways of retail development. Methods of research: generalization, grouping, comparison, classification and historical method are used for identifying the essence of the concept of "innovations in trade"; methods of causal and result connection and abstract-logic – for improving the classification. The absence of a clear definition of the concept innovation essence of trade enterprise has been stressed, as most scientists consider it from the standpoint of the production sphere. Having generalized scientific approaches, the concept definition "innovations in trade" have been provided as a complex process of generating creative ideas on the stages of procurement, storage and sale of goods on the market, creating value for the customer and allows providing intensive development of the enterprise, or to achieve economic, social and other effects. It has been emphasized that the development of retail trade, and improvement of work with the final user are impossible without constant changes. They must concern not only service, but also assortment management and surplus of goods, balances, logistics and business processes in each certain store. The main tendencies of trade innovations have been singled out: e-commerce, online and offline integration; emergence or duplication a new format; consumer experience management; continuous communication with the customer; internet of things; shop in your phone; expert content to customer. The perspective ways of retail development have been mentioned, each of them may be innovative for Ukraine and demonstrates the deepening of social trend of innovations in trade, including trading enterprises to follow customers' advice, offering customers to call their price, digital technologies allow making orders with individual customer requirements. The scientific novelty of the results is to specify and to prove the essence of the concept of "innovations in trade”. Further researches will be directed at eliminating the content differences in the definition of key concepts of innovative activity in trade aimed at analyzing and control the process of its funding.