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How will the store of the future look? Will small store formats, such as Tesco's new Fresh & Easy grocery stores, OfficeMax's Mini Marts and the just-announced Best Buy Mobile stores, take hold? asks RetailWire.com. Or will big-box discounters continue to gain more ground? These key questions and more are addressed in the recently released RetailWire.com/Dechert-Hampe report, "Retail Formats in Transition."

The results of this first in a new series of forward-looking studies entitled RETAIL:NEXT found that retail professionals believe economic trends will be a major influence on which retail store formats will prosper and which will fade over the next few years. But they also believe that budgets won't be the sole factor, and perhaps not the biggest influence on the types of stores retailers build. According to the study findings, convenience, customer service and pleasant shopping environments may trump economic imperatives when it comes to where consumers choose to shop.

The survey, conducted primarily via RetailWire.com, an online community of approximately 45,000 retail industry managers and executives in late 2008, also found the following:

1. Despite the current gloom, just over half (54 percent) of all respondents think the industry will experience modest or better growth over the next three years. And retailers were the most optimistic group, with 65 percent saying they expect "moderate growth" as compared to only 45 percent of manufacturers who felt that way.

2. Respondents forecast that the number of "small format grocery" and "neighborhood markets" along with "extreme discount/dollar stores" will increase sharply over the next three years -- driven by such key factors as value for money, convenient locations and a pleasant shopping experience.

3. Success will come to those retailers who create new and different formats. The selection of different retail formats available to consumers will expand, according to 46 percent of survey respondents. Only 25 percent see the numbers contracting.

4. The most successful retail concepts were predicted to be "quick/fresh small format grocery," followed by "experiential stores" (e.g. Apple Stores) and then "mission focused stores," such as OfficeMax's new Mini Mart concept.

For a complete executive summary of the report, visit www.retailwire.com.