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The purpose of the paper is to discover how very young (three- to six-year-old) children describe their “actual” shopping process and how they characterise an “ideal” shopping. The perceived role of new technological devices in such an ideal shopping process is also analysed.

A review of literature is followed by the description and findings of an exploratory study done in two European countries. Data collection was performed in three distinct phases. First, focus group discussions were conducted with 176 children. Second, interviews were organised with 30 children and one of their parents individually. Third, children were asked to prepare drawings about their actual and their ideal shopping.

The results show that very young children would like to actively participate in the shopping process no matter where they live. When describing their shopping experiences French kids focus on the products they buy, while Hungarian children talk about how they take part in the purchase process. The findings demonstrate that children have a great knowledge about technical devices and while French kids would be happy to replace offline shopping by online shopping, Hungarian kids find it as a bad idea. Interestingly, both French and Hungarian kids explain their opinion with their desire to spend more time with their parents.

The value of the paper lies in the focus of the research (opinion and feelings of very young children about the shopping process) as well as in the methodology used.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the theoretical background of the involvement and the entertainment of children of four to seven years of age in the purchase process at Hungarian retail stores. It also examines the practice of local and foreign retailers in Hungary.

A review of literature is followed by the description of an exploratory study as well as its findings. The study contained two distinct phases: first 160 retail stores which were selling goods to children (exclusively or together with products for adults) were randomly selected and observed, and then 120 face-to-face or mini group interviews were made with Hungarian children.

At the moment retail store managers in Hungary do not recognise that children can, and often do affect the length of time their parents spend in retail stores and that children also exert influence on their parents’ purchase decisions and behaviour. Retail store managers rarely provide any entertainment for children and involve them in the shopping experience and even when they do, they fail to do it in the right way. Also, store personnel do not have the right mentality towards children. The study also reveals that children do not wish to have sophisticated or expensive games during the purchase process, but instead would like to be actively involved in the shopping experience by completing little “missions” or “challenges”.

On the basis of the research results it becomes clear that creatively designed involvement and entertainment of children in retail stores would encourage families to spend more time spent in retail stores and may serve to increased sales. It would however presume collaboration between retail stores and the producers of toys and creative accessories.

The paper aims to address the rarely and sporadically analysed question of how retail managers should entertain and involve young children in the process of shopping. The exploratory study sheds light on the big gap between what is offered by the retail management and what is expected by the young children during shopping in Hungary. It also points to the apparent lack of attention and awareness amongst retailers concerning the influence that children have on parents during the shopping process.

This paper aims to evaluate the results of an empirical research whose objective was the analysis of the impact of the actual economic crisis on the expectations, preferences and attitudes of the Hungarian people towards the purchase of food and household items in retail stores.

A review of literature is followed by the description and evaluation of an empirical research. A sample of 1,000 people was randomly selected and data were collected by a pre‐tested questionnaire. By main component analyses 12 main components were identified and a k‐component cluster analysis was performed.

The findings of the empirical research show that people of the same country react entirely differently to the crisis from a behavioural point of view and that in Hungary the economic crisis resulted in the social polarisation of the citizens.

The paper provides evidence for the social polarisation of the Hungarian people which has a serious impact on their purchases in retail stores and which makes the retail store managers rethink their actual strategy and positioning. As the crisis continues there is room for a longitudinal study in the country and for a comparative cross cultural study in the region.

The paper shows an original approach of analysing how the Hungarian people's purchases of food and household items changed after the break‐out of the economic crises by using behavioural and psychographic variables as the basis of evaluations.