How to run a convenience store

After visiting convenience stores for a long time, the best operation mode of small convenience stores is summarized. With the gradual change of people's lifestyle, people's habit of shopping in medium and large supermarkets has been formed. With its price advantage and shopping convenience, supermarkets are constantly impacting the survival of some small convenience stores. In order to correctly understand and analyze the current practical problems, simply visit and compare other shops nearby:

1. How many years has this shop been open?

Shopkeeper: About nine years from beginning to end.

2. Has your shop always been in this position?

Shopkeeper: No, I used to drive across the street, about five years ago. When the rent across the street expired, I spent 320 thousand to buy this store. Until now.

3. Can you tell me the details of your store opening in recent years?

Shopkeeper: No problem. Probably in the first half of 1993, I rented the opposite store at the monthly 500 yuan fee and started to operate a convenience store. At that time, because the houses in this area had not been officially delivered, and the previous Shangdoumen farmers' market had not been officially put into operation, it was temporarily deserted and the business was not very good, but I knew that it would definitely be lively here before long. Soon, many shops and farmers' markets opened across the street. This area suddenly became lively, and my business was booming for a long time. People will pass by here when they buy food and bring things back. But not long after, another convenience store of the same nature opened across the street. Despite some influence, regular customers still like to buy things from me. It was the first half of 1997, and my rent was due. Before that, I had spent 320,000 yuan to buy a bigger store across the street, which is now this one. The one that competed with me before closed down at the same time, and my business was booming for a while. But it didn't last long. Because the supermarket opposite the farmer's market has been accepted by people, people's purchasing consciousness has also changed to some extent. Cheap prices in supermarkets attract a large number of customers, and there are about three convenience stores near the farmers' market. Because the house is our own, we don't have to share it, so we slowly lowered the prices of some commodities, and the business has been maintained until now. There are some ideas you gave me in 2000, and you have basically understood them since then.

4. Do you mean that I suggest your all-night service and a certain degree of home delivery?

Shopkeeper: Yes.

5. Then can you tell me more about the business changes after implementation?

Shopkeeper: Actually, it's not all night. My shops are basically closed around 4 am, which is the closing time of the nearby stalls. During this period, many people who come home late and like to eat midnight snacks will come to buy cigarettes, drinks and snacks, which will increase the income of the store and sometimes sell hundreds. As for delivery, in fact, although the overall income of the store has improved to a certain extent, it is not very big, because we send some old customers nearby, and if we don't send them, they will usually come down to buy them. I don't think this is very cost-effective.

6. Oh, that's right. Then please tell me more about some extra expenses here.

Shopkeeper: It costs a lot here. First of all, taxes: there are national taxes and local taxes, industrial and commercial management fees, three bags in front of the door, greening fees in the community, health fees, and public security fees in previous years.

7. Do all these expenses in the store count?

Shopkeeper: Yes, we settle accounts once a month, and we share all the expenses of settlement. You taught me how to share reconciliation. (Laughter)

8. Can you tell me more about home delivery?

Shopkeeper: OK. We are only responsible for the delivery within a radius of about 200 meters (which I summarized according to her introduction), so the business has increased to a certain extent. People who used to buy in the store next door sometimes call us for some reasons. But this situation is not much, or basically, as I said before, there are many old customers.

9. Since the business of nearby stores has brought you a little bit, why don't other stores deliver goods to your door?

Shopkeeper: I don't understand this question either. My husband works half a shift, so he will be free to come to the store, which can provide home delivery to some people in need. As far as I know, there is only one person in other stores, so it is difficult to deliver goods to your door.

10, then they include yourself. Why not hire some people to provide a wider range of home delivery services? This may better reflect the superiority of this operating model.

Shopkeeper: We have thought about this, but we dare not try it for the time being. Because there are many shops here, people don't have to walk too much, so they are afraid to take care of people, but business will not be much better.

1 1. Do you want me to try it for you first?

Shopkeeper: Sure, if you have time (laughs).

The second part summarizes the experimental records of door-to-door service.

Before visiting the star convenience store, I have considered the door-to-door delivery mode of small convenience stores. In order to further prove my idea that home delivery is the competitive advantage of small convenience stores, I made a bold attempt.

On February 3rd, I printed 500 copies of the price list of door-to-door service for Star Convenience Store, which directly stated that it was delivered to the door free of charge and distributed to 500 mailboxes in the community. I began to be responsible for home delivery.

On February 3rd, 7 delivery services were completed, and the cash income was 488 yuan. Two of them are from me, and three have never been sent before. The products delivered include a box of Wangzai milk, a box of bottled double deer beer and three bags of toilet paper. There is no evidence that 500 price lists have played a big role here. Let's look at the number of sales households and income from this day to February 13. See figure 1.

Figure 1

As can be seen from the figure, door-to-door service has a slow rising trend, which has proved that door-to-door service is worth a try for small convenience stores, and people's response is quite good. Due to the intervention of the Chinese New Year, the effect of our experiment is not obvious, but according to the shopkeeper's dictation, this lively door-to-door situation has never appeared before, and from the third day after the eighth day of the first month, according to the reply, the average number of delivery households per day is about 10, and the area is expanding, and the shopping volume sent by the price list has also increased to a certain extent. Moreover, because of the price list, the popularity of star convenience stores has also increased a lot, and people from afar have begun to pay attention to star convenience stores.

Through the detailed experimental records and observations during this period, as well as the previous understanding of star-rated convenience stores, the leading advantage of small convenience stores is that they are small and flexible. How to use this flexibility has become the key to the success or failure of convenience stores, and it is also the key to the long-term development and growth of convenience stores. The third part is the existence of small convenience stores.

Shortcomings and solutions.

Since the appearance of large supermarket retail, the shortcomings and disadvantages of small convenience stores have been exposed very clearly. There are two main points here:

1, there is absolutely no advantage in price, and neither the purchase channel nor the sales volume can compete with it, so the price cannot be equal to or lower than that of supermarkets. It is impossible to win at a low price.

In terms of variety richness, small convenience stores can't be as dazzling as large supermarkets. Only on the basis of fully considering the regional differences and people's lifestyle differences, we choose the goods that people buy most frequently and sell them with some unique goods.

3 is also the most important thing, that is, his smallness. It is also mainly because of the small size that the first two points are defective. But his smallness also constitutes its advantage. This will be explained in detail below.

Therefore, it is impossible for small convenience stores to adopt the same or similar sales and management methods as large and medium supermarkets. They should have their own uniqueness, give full play to their small advantages and respond flexibly.

Here, the star convenience store gave us a better inspiration:

1, because the variety is not rich, there should be a very unique side in the choice and way of selling goods. Star convenience store is very good at mastering the tricks. For example, in the sale of bulk biscuits, star convenience stores make full use of the information asymmetry between merchants and customers, and can achieve 50% profit. Some biscuits are bundled in small packages, that is, biscuits with different prices are sold together to calculate the most profitable sales method. In this way, customers can eat cookies with various flavors, and businesses can get the maximum profit. We also sell a large number of biscuits without brand name but with unique taste. This kind of biscuit has a low purchase price and a small quantity in the market, which can have a great profit margin (this is based on special channels).

2. The best location of small convenience stores is in residential areas, as close as possible to farmers' markets. The more guests pass by your convenience store, the better. Star convenience store has great advantages in this respect, which happens to be the most prosperous street in Shangdoumen residential area, and it is very close to the farmers' market, but in this regard alone, there are two stores that have more advantages, just at the intersection of the market. Two-thirds of the small convenience stores in the whole community are concentrated near the farmers' trade (within the scope of my visit).

3. All-night service is a magic weapon for small convenience stores, which truly reflects its small flexibility. However, in order to truly achieve all-night service, you need to have certain objective conditions, whether it is possible to provide all-night service in your business area, whether the elasticity of all-night cost is small enough, or simply whether all-night service is really profitable. The reason why Star Convenience Store can provide all-night service is inseparable from its geographical location. From the above interview, we have clearly known that there are many stalls open all night near the store, which is the root cause.

4. Flexible delivery service is the competitive advantage of small convenience stores. We will make a further analysis of this. As we have seen before, home delivery is effective. Here we will compare it from the horizontal and vertical angles to see if home delivery service is a good sales method for small convenience stores. The first is horizontal comparison: during this period, I also visited several representative convenience stores nearby, and none of them hired door-to-door delivery attendants. Only seven wholesale grocery stores nearby are equipped with tricycles and delivery attendants. So as long as you make a simple comparison, you can see the advantages of home delivery. In general convenience stores, a relatively large table will be placed in front of the store during the Spring Festival, and a relatively gorgeous cloth will be laid to set off the festive atmosphere for the convenience of customers. Because of my experiment, Star Convenience Store has a standardized door-to-door delivery process. According to simple data, the daily sales of Star Convenience Store is about 10% of other convenience stores, which is the advantage of door-to-door delivery and fully taps potential customers. Secondly, to make a longitudinal comparison, because there is no detailed historical data, we can only draw from the memory of the owner that the sales in this stage of the Chinese New Year have increased greatly compared with the sales in the same period of the past few years, and they are basically increased in beer and drinks, and the main products delivered to the door are beer, drinks, cigarettes and bulky items. It is not difficult to see from these two aspects that door-to-door delivery is an effective means of competition for small convenience stores.

But star convenience stores have several fatal problems:

First of all, all the convenience stores I have been to are family-style, taking the family as the unit. This method is not necessarily bad, but the star convenience store is very poor. This is mainly reflected in his chaotic management of expenses and funds. The expenses mentioned in the interview did not separate the expenses of convenience stores and families. For example, the records of national tax, local tax and industrial and commercial management fees are no different from those of residential management fees such as health fees and public security fees. It is included in the convenience store. Although these expenses are not very high and will not have much impact at present, if these expenses increase, it will cause great confusion to the cash management of stores. Therefore, it is quite critical to treat in-store expenses and family expenses differently, which is also a problem that must be solved in this family-style management.

Secondly, receiving information is slow. For example, this year's beer sales, Star Convenience Store found that Budweiser beer was a hot spot this year after the Chinese New Year, and the blue ribbon was almost unsalable, but he had already entered a large number of blue ribbon beer at the end of the year. This low grasp of information is a major deficiency of small convenience stores. If it can grasp this information well at the end of the year, this will not happen.

Finally, in terms of service methods, star convenience stores can sell at a fairly cheap price for old customers, while for new customers, they try at a higher price first, and then respond, that is, the price transparency is low. This will make it difficult to catch new customers and make them feel trust.

How to grasp the advantages, overcome the disadvantages and seek new and unique management methods is the key to the development of small convenience stores, and we must learn to use new scientific and technological tools. I also found that brands are also very important for small convenience stores. A good brand image can attract more new customers and have a great influence.

The fourth part is the summary of the investigation visit.

The development of China's retail industry is only a few years, and most of the management experience from abroad comes from large supermarkets. In China, small retailers are a very large team, but their business scale is very small, and there is no special method suitable for their own development. Therefore, it is quite necessary to observe and study small convenience stores. The above survey is only for simple reference.