Proximity to home (ideally within a 400 meter radius).
Quick response - minimal waiting time at register.
Customer product/service needs are simple, convenient and quick.
Products are consumed soon after purchase, so must be easy to prepare and use.
Convenience stores act as an agent for lifestyle convenience services such as courier services, film development, utilities payments, office services, special events ticketing, etc.
Convenience stores are very different from the supermarket business in terms of smaller shop sizes, smaller product assortments, less inventory on hand, lower sales volumes per customer, slightly higher prices, and increased distribution costs due to the higher frequency of small-batch deliveries.
While a supermarket has wider product variety and deals with many more producers, a convenience store has many small stores with mainly food products and fewer producers thereby highlighting the producer-retailer relationship.
There are fewer than 3,000 items in a convenience store - less than 1/10th of a supermarket. However, a convenience store puts most of their products on shelves (little inventory).
Challenge is in managing low inventory, but fully stocked shelves. Thus, convenience store and supermarket operating systems are very different.
Convenience stores hold their strongest single advantage in time convenience.
Highest average peak sales segment is from 18:00-22:00 (which is the most important control period), followed by the 10:00-14:00 period, and then the 06:00-10:00 period.
Peak pinpoint time is from 12:00-13:00 (average 60 customers per store).
In terms of the store layout, onigiri (rice balls) and bento (boxed lunches) items are usually placed straight ahead from the entrance with direct access (for speed of purchase).
Walk-in case drinks are at the furthest point away from the entrance, to improve the chances that customers focused on drinks will pick up additional items on the way.
The atmosphere design is geared towards a fresh and young environment that is comfortable and easy for the customer to enter.
The store image aims at friendly service, a versatile and efficient system, and strong local event awareness (greetings and cleanliness important).
The product focus is one that realizes a convenience store can only carry a fraction of supermarket products, so they must choose their item assortment very carefully. 'No stock-outs' is vital (disposal loss of excess goods is better than a missed sale loss).
Cleanliness is important for food product safety image (sanitary control).
This information is maintained by: Gail Atkinson
Last Revised/Reviewed September 22, 1999
