Convenience store
A Convenience Store (also: convenience store, convenience store ) is a form of operation in retail.
These include small -scale businesses whose range rather high-priced, narrow ( ie a few product groups are covered ) and flat (that is, only a small selection within covered commodity groups ), and the emphasis in the food industry and in particular in the area immediately to consume Direction Products has ( convenience Products, convenience food ).
But also additional services are often smaller ( order acceptance for mail-order houses, lottery agencies or postal agencies, for example ) are offered. Convenience stores rely on the convenience of their customers and are often tied to external frequency Shuttle (train stations, gas stations ). Especially in Germany, they can at these sites also benefit from here especially liberal opening times (24 /7). For convenience shops but also include kiosks.
The importance of this type of operation has risen sharply in recent years (sales in Germany over € 20 billion, October 2005 ). They are seen both as a competitor to traditional grocery retailers, as well as for catering enterprises ( bakeries, fast -food restaurants).
Assortments
- Confectionery
- Drinks (alcoholic as alcohol-free)
- Cigarettes / Tobacco
- Food
- Phone cards
- Magazines
- Snacks / baked goods
Depending on the type of distribution to reach the tobacco / cigarettes around 50 % of shop sales. Phone cards or prepaid cards for mobile phones have in recent years also reached a large percentage of sales, although the meaning has been reversed again for the shop owners.
In particular petrol station shops currently set on expanding the snack and bakery assortments.
Distribution types
In Germany, one generally speaks of convenience shops in subsequent retail formats:
- Service station shop
- Kiosks / Trinkhallen
- Station Stores
- Small-area grocery stores
Especially the small-area grocery stores are currently through the liberalization of shop opening times in a development process towards the convenience store. Various German trade groups develop enhanced retail formats that meet the future demands of convenience and have no additional frequency feeder such as gas stations or stations. The fact that the development and implementation of such stand-alone concepts is not easy, was the market leader Lekkerland. Lekkerland presented after a few months, the multiplication of the announced concept called " Everyday". Another stand-alone solution under the Aral brand was discontinued also after about 18 months. Established currently have the concepts shop'n go, saving Express and IK - your merchant of the MCS group and the economy.
Frequently, other forms of retailing, with above-mentioned ranges are also called convenience stores. In the trade press but you normally speak of " New Channels", referring to:
- Video Stores
- Canteens
- Bakeries
- Beverage stores
Since these forms of retailing, offering only small parts of the range of the original convenience stores, such deferral should be made.
Convenience stores in Japan
In Japan, convenience stores are by its acronym Combo or Combini (also Conbini ) (コンビニ) known. In these you can buy not only products for daily life, but also pay his electric bill and phone bill. Furthermore, one can effect service in this Kombinis packages. Often there are several Combo same chain in close proximity, so that the goods distribution is cheaper and more common. This strategy is called a dominant policy (ドミナント 政策, dominanto seisaku ). In 2007 there were 44 542 Kombinis in Japan, of which 12,034 belong to the 7-Eleven. The next largest are Lawson and Family Mart. The total turnover of 7.8 trillion yen ( ≈ 47 billion euros, as of end 2007).