We often hear the words Grocery, convenience, retail outlet, retail industry and supermarket franchise. But do you think all these fancy terms have the same meaning? Both convenience and grocery stores stock food and other packaged food, and convenience stores work for short trips or just a few items. In contrast, Grocery is an essential commodity for a month or an extensive shopping trip to stock up the food and other necessary supplies.
What Is a Convenience Store?
A convenience store is small and sells a limited number of prepared and ready-to-serve food, bottled, household supplies, tobacco, and other products. They are comparatively more minor in size than different types of stores and are open for several hours. Due to its size, their team is also limited, including cashiers, stock employees, and managers.
These are generally built on the road. These stores are stocked and designed for easy to purchase and go and provide few commodities only. These stores are open early in the morning till late night even on holidays, most of the people are dependent on emergency services such as ice, milk, eggs when regular stores are closed.
What Is a Grocery Store?
Grocery stores refer to those stores specializing in selling fresh food, prepared food, and other household supplies such as toiletries, cleaning products, personal care items, and essential medicines. Many grocery stores also offer complete packages for months best for single-parent families or whose children, working people are living outside. This trend is very famous for army personnel or other government employees who live away from their families.
Supermarket vs. Grocery Store
The difference between supermarkets and grocery stores is very nominal; these words are often used interchangeably for each other. Both deal in fresh and prepared foods; Household cleaners and cleaning tools; Personal care products and healthcare products. But the supermarkets are large apart from groceries, unique care products, and household supplies. They also include basic cosmetics, socks and electric kitchen and home appliances, and even gift items. Best supermarket franchise serve a more significant number of customers in comparison to traditional grocery stores.
Differences Between Convenience and Grocery Stores
There is no considerable difference between grocery and convenience stores, and both have different missions. Grocery stores are ideal for those who need to purchase both everyday festival occasions. They offer wide ranges of food of multiple brands and have a high inventory level, facilitating the customers to buy in bulk. Grocery stores also offer wheeled carts available at the entrance to give more comfort to shoppers in carrying their grocery items. On the other hand, convenience stores are ideal for those who need only one or two terms. These stores operate in small spaces and do not have card facilities. Customers buy a few items and can easily carry them to the cash counter.
Sizes of Both Stores
Generally, the size of a convenience store is approx 1000 to 1500 ft.², whereas the size of an average grocery store is around 500 to 1000 ft.². The size of stores may also vary according to the store’s location.
Opening and Closing Time of Both Stores
Convenience stores are open early in the morning to late at night, but grocery stores have fixed opening and closing times. Convenience stores are ideal for emergency needs, but grocery stores do not give their service late at night.
Staff Of Both Stores
Grocery stores have more employees, including cashiers, department managers, store managers, and other dedicated counter employees. On the other hand, convenience stores have only 2 to 3 staff, including cashiers, workers, and owners. Some convenience stores have more than one register at a checkout counter, or even some have only one record because people buy only one for two items.
Parking Spaces of Both Stores
Convenience stores do not need parking spaces because they are small in size and built on roads only. They are easily accessible by vehicle on foot. There are some convenience stores attached to petrol pumps or gas stores which offer time-saving shopping. Whereas, grocery stores require large parking lots or maybe dedicated underground spaces because people used to spend more time in the store and it takes some minutes to reach the store from parking.
Prices of Both Stores
The prices of convenience stores are generally higher than a traditional grocery shop. The reason for the higher price is the quick availability of the product that we need. On the other hand, prices in grocery stores are competitive, which attracts more and more customers to frequent the store.
Products In Both Stores
The products in convenience stores are likely to have one brand in every category. At the same time, grocery stores offer multiple brands in every type of product. For example, grocery store shelves often hold many different brands of tea. There may be several tea variants within every brand, such as tulsi tea, ginger tea, and many more.
Other factors
Since the pandemic, the retail industry has undergone a massive change in India and across the world. People are approaching home delivery, which may contribute to the warehouse grocery model. Another change witnessed during this time is, people are coming for groceries only and are suspicious of prepared and ready-to-eat food in the grocery store.