Despite the potential pandemic boost, performance this year has been similarly patchy. The average value per convenience-store transaction in China increased by 120% at the height of the pandemic, and stayed high. In Britain the Co-operative Group declared that sales rose by 8% in the first half, year on year, to £5.8bn ($7.6bn), thanks to its Co-op and Nisa minimarts. At the same time Seven & i reported a 12% drop in operating profits in the three months to August. FamilyMart lost money in the third quarter. OXXO’s parent company, FEMSA, is also in the red this year.
Although some pandemic shopping habits favour convenience stores, others do not. Rivals are offering the same goods for less and brought to your doorstep, often in an hour or two. Deliveroo, a British food-delivery app (part-owned by Amazon), ferries booze from supermarkets. In August DoorDash, an American one that teamed up with 7-Eleven in the pandemic’s early days, launched its own virtual DashMart.
To fend off rivals, stores must evolve with shoppers’ changing ideas of convenience, says Amanda Bourlier of Euromonitor International, a research firm. One American chain, Wawa, has opened drive-through stores. Another, Casey’s, has reported a surge in digital sales. Stores in South Korea and Japan, which face labour shortages, are toying with automated payments. In America 7-Eleven now delivers online orders to homes, as well as public places like parks. But its parent has also bought Speedway, a chain of American petrol stations, for $21bn. That adds 3,900 outlets to the 9,000-odd 7-Elevens in America (and 70,000 or so globally). It is a big bet that petrol cars aren’t soon disappearing—and nor are convenience stores.■
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