The article is aimed at developing a scientific-methodical approach to the identification of sources of competitive advantages, taking into account the specifics of enterprises in the retail trade sector. The development and transformation of approaches to identifying sources of competitive advantage within the institutional, market and resource concepts is considered. The main provisions of scientific thought on this problem are defined and the observance of the resource approach is substantiated. A methodical approach to identification of the existing sources of competitive advantages and potential of their development in retail enterprises is proposed. As a basis, the following general scientific principles are allocated: complexity, security, comparability, information sufficiency, orientation towards creating the bigger consumer value. The stages of implementation of evaluation-identification procedures are characterized. The directions of identification of the sources of competitive advantages are determined as follows: provision of labor and commodity resources, capital, level of management, capabilities of staff. The stage of formation of the information base is characterized. The choice of research objects is substantiated, taking into account the dual nature of competitive advantages and the sectoral specifics of trade enterprises. The quantitative and qualitative correspondence of both the potential and the realized advantages within each resource-competent plane of the enterprise’s potential is determined. The conditions for identifying sources of competitive advantages and their corresponding target development benchmarks are defined. The proposed methodical instrumentarium was tested at the trade network enterprises of the city of Kharkiv. The competitive position of enterprises according to available sources, the level of their involvement in the processes of creating competitive advantages are specified; recommendations on the ways of their formation and development are made.