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In the second half of the 1990s, important global traders began to come to the Slovak market, changing the functional layout of the towns and cities by building large-scale stores, bringing new formats and forms of selling to retails, as well as thoughtful external and internal shop designs. More than twenty years have passed since then, however, internationalmarketers continue to shape the Slovak retail market, this time through a sustainable architecture of shops and logistics centres, responsible product assortments, reduced food waste, separating and reducing paper or plastic packaging and batteries, changing the employees´ clothing for garments from organic cottons, and so on. They have namely realized that the environment is more affected than protected as a result of globalization, and it is therefore necessary to take measures to protect the natural world with regard to permanently sustainable principles. The object of our research is the shopping setting in retail stores of selected worldwide retail chains operating in Slovakia, i.e. all elements of the retail shop and its operation (its design, layout, goods presentation, staff and customers), in the context of sustainability. We are looking for answers to the questions of which selected global retail chain stores working in Slovakia and by implementing of which specific measures they build sustainable points of sale. In the process of elaborating the paper we used as sources of information relevant publications, proceedings of scholarly papers, as well as studies available at the Internet sites of specialized journals. At elaborating the sources, we applied standard scientific methods: researching, description, analysis, and deduction.

Research background: The epidemic that has hit us on a global scale has had a negative impact not only on the work-related, social, and personal lives of each individual or household, but also on the economies of different countries and, last but not least, on decision-making of companies. One of the areas in which we noticed clearly the influence of the pandemic was the communication of retail chains with their customers: e.g., Kaufland stopped the unaddressed distribution of its promotional leaflets and tried to redirect the interest of customers to the digital (online) environment. With our paper we respond to this measure. The object of our research is the posts of the multinational retail chain Kaufland published on its Facebook account, intended for customers on the Slovak and German markets, during the period when a state of emergency was imposed in Slovakia. Purpose of the article: The main purpose of the content analysis is to find out the topics of the online contents of the retail chain Kaufland in Slovakia in communication with customers during an emergency state on its Facebook pages and compare them with the topics of articles posted during the observed period on the company´s Facebook pages in Germany. Methods: Digital contents are divided into contributions related and not related to the pandemic. As Germany did not impose general restrictions, we found out that in comparison with Slovakia, some themes related to the health protection or social responsibility did not appear on the Facebook pages of Kaufland in Germany. Findings & Value added: Conversely, Kaufland Slovakia did not assure customers that stores were regularly supplied and customers did not have to fall into purchasing hysteria, did not encourage customers to move to digital (online) environment and also did not publish job offers (for temporary work) in its shops or by its suppliers. The number of pandemic-related posts has been declining over the examined period.

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