In Paris, the retail sector has undergone fundamental changes in the course of the past thirty years, one of the most noticeable examples being the increase in the number of network structured retail outlets. Today, retail networks located in the Paris area involve numerous and sometimes even contradictory organisational structures, giving rise to site selection, market capture and land occupancy strategies that have very varied consequences for Paris. This study pinpoints the main effects: the impact on the attractiveness of commercial shopping-areas, the standardization of goods on offer, the resulting increase in the value of businesses and commercial rents, the difficult survival of independent retailers especially in the food sector, relegation to less attractive sites and even the disappearance of certain sectors of activity but also the revival of certain districts and increased accessibility to products that were previously hard to find. This in-depth restructuring of the distribution sector is only the visible part of a global phenomenon and a new phase that is being played out, characterised by increased competition through a widening of local markets towards international trade. Small independent neighbourhood shops, well-established in their own locality, that were adversely affected by out-of-town shopping centres and the arrival of large retail chains selling food or other specialised products, are now very sought after and find themselves faced with competition on their own ground from the spread of international retail networks into the local market sphere.