Retail Trade Network
A trading network of the local grocery store is a set of trading enterprises located within a particular territory or under joint management.
The local grocery store provides the opportunity to quickly and conveniently acquire the necessary goods and services with minimum effort and time in the conditions of free choice from a variety, near the place of work and housing, in convenient quantities.
Retail trade of grocery store network performs the following functions: purchase, transportation, storage, sub-sorting, part-time, bringing to market, selling goods, accepting the risk, financial activities, informing the market, obtaining information about the market.
The retail enterprise of grocery stores carries out the purchase and sale of goods to deliver the necessary services to customers.
Local Grocery store and its problems
A store is a specially equipped in-house building or part of it that is intended for the sale of goods and services to customers and provided with trade and all necessary auxiliary, administrative and domestic premises, as well as premises for receiving, storing and preparing products for sale.
There are universal, specialized shops, shops that offer a mixed assortment of goods.
Universal store (department store) – a store with an unlimited range of non-food items and a department of food products. For this kind of grocery store, controlling the operational costs can be the biggest challenge.
Supermarket – a self-service store with a universal assortment of food products and a limited range of non-food items of daily demand. The most common problem of the supermarket is time wastage, the strain on the working employees, and less efficient software. Therefore, the inefficient process is one of the biggest challenges of this type of grocery store.
Hypermarket – a store is selling both luxury goods and consumer goods, with an emphasis on essential consumer goods and food. Managers of such grocery stores cannot understand the inventory process. What to deliver, where to deliver, and what time to deliver?
A specialized store is a retail enterprise that sells one group of goods or a subgroup of the products.
A grocery store with a combined assortment of goods is a retail enterprise that sells several products connected by common demand and satisfying individual needs. The enterprises of this type include “Goods for Children,” “Household Goods,” “Goods for Leisure,” “Fruits and vegetables,” “Makeup and Jewelry,” etc.
Principles of a Grocery Store
The difference between the supermarket and the Hypermarket is noticeable. The supermarket is a large department store with the self-service technology and sale of goods through the cash register. The challenge for a grocery store can be a considerable number of people shopping daily. The average number of customers in one supermarket chain is 3,500 people per day.
The Pricing and space Issue
Grocery stores that are of “Premium” class can face many pricing, discount, and space challenges. The spaces of such grocery stores do not exceed 2 thousand square meters, and in their variety, there are up to 20 thousand items. Here are essential food products plus a minimum amount of vegetables and fruits, a small selection of alcohol, meat, and fish. But the main difference from discounters, in this case, is the price. The trade markup to wholesale prices in the economy class supermarkets is 30% – 40%.
Retail network of grocery stores is characterized by:
- the ratio of grocery store enterprises engaged in trade in food and non-food products
- the specific gravity of the fixed network in the total number of grocery store enterprises
- the specific weight of specialized grocery stores in the total number of trade enterprises
- used forms of sale and methods of service
- the ratio of retail space used for the implementation of certain groups of goods
- the ratio of trade and non-trading areas of the grocery store
- duration of use of the working area during the day (mode of operation)
- the ratio of parts of the total area of a grocery store trading enterprise
- the specific gravity of grocery stores provided with refrigeration equipment, including those that trade in perishable goods
- the average size of the sales area of a single grocery store

