Convenience - our business
Quick and comfortable shopping - anywhere and any time
A sandwich in your hand, a refreshing drink from a can or a chocolate bar as a refreshment in between times. Instead of extensive meals, more and more consumers all over Europe are preferring convenience food.
Why are more and more consumers buying convenience products more and more frequently? There are varied reasons. Everyday life demands high flexibility and mobility. At the same time, the number of single households is rising. Household organisation and stock-keeping are moved into the background. Time is money and time is short. Customers want to shop as quickly and comfortably as possible.
Convenience: this trend is not only concerned with the offers of products, but also the service. The range alone no longer satisfies the requirements and wishes of today's consumers.
The decisive thing for the success of convenience stores is not only the location, accessibility and above all the opening hours, but also the handling of the shopping. In an increasingly anonymous everyday life, emotional factors play an increasing role in shopping. Consumers desire spontaneous communication and friendliness.
The typical convenience consumer, by the way, is male and under 40. However, this picture will change distinctly by the year 2020. The potential has not been exhausted by a long way yet. Because when today's young, trained convenience consumers go shopping in convenience stores as older customers, a new, young convenience generation will already have succeeded them.
The Convenience Store
There are many possibilities of getting the convenience products to the customers: in a kiosk or in a canteen, in a baker's shop and in a supermarket, in a tobacco or sweets shop as well as filling station shops or in the new, derived kinds of convenience stores. The structure of the organisation and procurement ranges from national systems down to individual shop mangers. In this way, filling station shops which are part of a mineral oil company profit from their high professionalism and from the standardised market appearance, for example. On the other hand, kiosks make their appearance individual and varied.
