Retail Issues - Growth in Convenience Stores
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The march out of town by Retailers is slowing – to be replaced by significant growth in Convenience formats by major multiples.
This is happening both organically and through acquisition. The key to driving the convenience format has been to compress a huge range (10,000 plus items) into a small (300 sq m), local space.
This has proved irresistible to busy urban workers and, in the UK, has resulted in convenience store volume growth running at double that of the market average whilst Europe is expected to grow from €92bn in 2001 to €108.2bn in 2006.
BUT: This is no place for cases of 24 or even 12. To pull off this trick replenishment must drop to singles picking – currently with severe double handling and cost consequences.
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Efficient singles replenishment is set to be the critical success factor of Retail Supply Chains – and is already leading to experiments with pushing returnable transit containers back into personal products manufacturers.
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