The Economist explains: The convenience-store comeback

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SHOPPING in Britain in the 1950s used to be an arduous task. Back then the high street was dominated by smaller specialist stores, which offered only a limited range of items. That changed when supermarkets came along in the 1960s, offering greater choice at lower prices, in larger warehouse-style buildings. But over the past few years supermarket chains throughout the rich world have been investing more heavily in smaller stores. In Britain, the floor area of the average store run by Sainsbury’s, a large supermarket chain, has fallen from around 2,000 square metres in 2008 to just 1,750 square metres today. In America the number of smaller stores started to rise again in 2011. Walmart, a hypermarket specialist, unveiled its first convenience store in March, and plans to open more. So why are smaller shops making a comeback?Partly it is the result of the financial crisis. In an effort to reduce the amount of food they are throwing away, shoppers are now buying what they need more frequently at smaller shops or shopping online, rather than doing bigger and more speculative weekly shops at hypermarkets. The average spend per visit at Britain’s big four supermarket chains has fallen by 5% over the past year, according to Nielsen, a market-research firm.Economic forces do not completely explain the trend, however. Convenience-store openings have accelerated since the …

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