Editor's Note: While former CSP intern Ashley Dickens is spending some time abroad, she is providing some perspective of the c-store market in the cities and countries she'll be visiting. Watch CSP Daily News every two weeks for regular reports from Germany, Italy, Ireland and other European destinations. In this third installment, we get a look at retailing convenience in London. To read the previous installment, click here. To read the first installment, click here.
LONDON -- When I first stepped off the train at Waterloo Station in London, I was immediately overjoyed to be in a country that spoke a language I could understand. And as I toured the city, the lack of a language barrier made me more aware of the similarities between American and European convenience stores.
Particularly in London, gas stations are less accessible to tourists than those in the United States (I usually spot them in the suburbs of the city I'm leaving.), but the convenience stores seem to offer a wider selection of goods at one location than the stores of France. As I walked through the city I noticed many stores that sold a large assortment of goods such as tourist collectibles, cigarettes, newspapers, hot meals as well as cold sandwiches, candy, coffee and cold drinks.
Within the city, I also discovered a Tesco store. Having heard the news of the company's plan to make a move to the United States, I walked into one of their grocery stores and saw large selections of food items. Fresh produce, bread, meat and take-away foods stretched to the back of the stores in long aisles, along with canned goods and packaged foodstuffs. Each aisle ended at a cash register where customers put their groceries into personal bags and hurriedly rushed out.
I then visited a Tesco gas station on my way to Greenwich to make a comparison. The gas station looked very similar to American gas stations. From a quick glance, I counted four gas pumps and saw a rather large store behind the pumps. The store held many of the items that we might hope to find in a gas station in the U.S., including cold drinks and some food selections.
As I stared at the gas station through train windows, in a moment of realization, I understood that gas stations would not be in the heart of the 500-year-old city where the tourists are most attracted, but rather near residential areas. It took a moment for me to understand that we have much the same idea in the United States as rarely will one find a gas station in the heart of a downtown metropolis.
With this in mind, and thanks to the language of London, my evaluation of European convenience stores has shifted from a store that carries a little of everything to accommodate an American's need to one-stop-shop, to a store that is strategically placed to meet the needs of that area. Suburbs have gas stations to accommodate cars, a luxury that the city doesn't needpeople rely on their feet or the trains. Likewise, cities have the need for quick, easy purchases of such things as fresh food, newspapers, wine or tobacco, thus the small news agencies or brick-a-brack stores (like the tabacs in France) one can find on every major street.
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