便利店业绩增长从“多开门店”转为“深耕单客”

This article shares an overview of China’s current convenience store industry and its transformation direction, with key takeaways below:

1. Current industry status: In the first half of 2026, over 71.7% of convenience store operators saw foot traffic decline, 50% reported falling sales, and 60% experienced contracting profits. Store expansion has plummeted, dropping from a net addition of 9,570 stores in 2024 to just 1,391 net new stores in H1 2026. Simply expanding locations can no longer sustain growth, but 18.3% of players have achieved simultaneous growth in both sales and profit. Two regional brands, Hunan-based Xinjiayi and Guangdong-based Tianfu, have maintained growth through localization innovation.

2. Core factors shaping consumer choices: Research finds that store appearance and cleanliness carry more weight than pricing. A single bad experience with unsanitary conditions can drive customers away permanently. Proactive recommendation from cashiers significantly boosts the average number of items per transaction, and once consumers form a "overpriced" perception of a store, it is very difficult to reverse.

3. Future transformation: Convenience stores will gradually evolve into community life service nodes. Beyond selling goods, they will offer diverse services such as bill payment and parcel pickup, becoming an indispensable daily amenity for consumers.

The convenience store industry has entered a new growth cycle, shifting its growth driver from location expansion to deepening customer engagement. Key takeaways for brand owners below:

1. Shifting consumer trends: Consumers have been fragmented across multiple channels: snack aggregation stores have captured impulse-buying customers, discount stores attract price-sensitive shoppers, on-demand retail serves in-home demand, and e-commerce takes away planned stock-up purchases. Original customer bases have been broken up, forcing brands to rebuild differentiated positioning.

2. Product R&D direction: Brands should focus on localized innovation in fresh food, and develop exclusive original products and IP-collaboration limited editions. These products effectively drive in-store traffic and deliver higher gross margins. For example, original fresh food items account for over 35% of sales at Japan’s 7-Eleven, with gross margins 15 percentage points higher than standard products. A collaboration onigiri from South Korea’s CU contributed 18% of category sales in its first week.

3. Brand operation priorities: Brands must prioritize basic QSC (Quality, Service, Cleanliness) management, as cleanliness and service matter more than pricing. They should also invest in membership management, integrate online and offline functions, expand life service scenarios, and continuously improve user retention and loyalty.

The convenience store industry’s growth logic has changed. Key takeaways for independent convenience store operators below:

1. Risk and opportunity outlook: The overall industry faces high risk today, with over 70% of operators seeing foot traffic decline and profits squeezed by rising rent and labor costs. Simply opening more stores can no longer drive growth, as external competition from on-demand retail and snack discount stores has eroded customer bases. However, opportunities remain: operators that focus on second-tier and lower-tier markets and deepen per-customer value can still achieve positive growth.

2. Diagnosing operational issues: Use a core formula to break down data and identify root problems: Average daily sales per store = Daily foot traffic × Average items per transaction × Average unit price. If foot traffic falls, audit surrounding competition and rebuild a differentiated reason for customers to visit. If items per transaction fall, adjust product display and optimize cross-selling recommendations. If average unit price falls, be wary of excessive promotions eroding profits. You should also track gross profit margin and product waste rate to maintain operational health.

3. Actionable growth strategies: Create reasons for visits through original and limited-edition products; build an online membership system; drive traffic through pre-order and in-store pickup programs; and expand life services to increase user touchpoints and boost repeat visits and loyalty.

The transformation of the convenience store industry has created new demand and business opportunities for manufacturers. Key takeaways below:

1. Shifts in product design and production demand: Convenience stores no longer only seek one-size-fits-all general products. Instead, they demand more localized fresh food, exclusive original goods, and IP-collaboration seasonal limited items that require frequent iteration to drive consumer visits. This requires factories to have flexible production capacity for small-batch, multi-batch runs, to collaborate with brands on rapid responses to market trends and product updates.

2. New business opportunities: As the industry’s growth focus shifts from expansion to product operations, more brands are developing private labels and original products, with demand surging particularly for fresh food and specialty snacks. This brings stable, targeted development orders for contract manufacturers, and localization innovation needs from regional brands will also create more regional cooperation opportunities.

3. Transformation insights: As convenience stores pursue online-offline integration and add categories such as pre-order goods and large-pack items that cannot be displayed in-store, factories need to accommodate demand for multiple SKUs in small batch quantities. Building flexible supply chains early will allow manufacturers to capture the order dividends from this industry transformation.

The convenience store industry has entered a new development phase. Key takeaways for service providers below:

1. Industry trends: The sector has exited the high-growth era of scale expansion and entered a new cycle focused on deepening customer relationships and user operations. Industry divergence is pronounced: most players face pressure from falling foot traffic and contracting profits, but second-tier cities and lower-tier markets still offer room for steady growth, and industry demand for operational upgrades has increased sharply.

2. Core client pain points: Most convenience store operators cannot identify the real causes of their falling foot traffic. They habitually rely on price cuts and promotions to solve problems, which only traps them in a vicious cycle of shrinking profits. They lack capabilities in data analysis, membership operations and integrated online-offline operations, and basic management standards vary widely across the industry.

3. Business opportunities and solutions: Service providers can develop operational data analysis tools tailored for convenience stores to help operators break down performance metrics and identify problems; offer training and consulting services for QSC management, product display and design; and provide technical services for membership system building and online system development, to help merchants complete operational upgrades and capture transformation opportunities.

The transformation of the convenience store industry has brought new demand and development directions for platform operators. Key takeaways below:

1. Core demand from convenience store merchants: Today, merchants need to break through the physical space limits of their stores to expand product categories, drive online traffic to in-store visits, and access data services to optimize operations and address falling foot traffic and shrinking profits.

2. Actionable strategies for platforms: Platforms can launch an "online pre-order + in-store pickup" cooperation model to help convenience stores expand their full product assortment while directing online traffic to physical stores. Existing data shows that over 40% of customers who come to pick up pre-orders make additional purchases, creating a win-win outcome. Platforms can also roll out targeted investment and support policies for high-quality regional convenience store brands to help them access online traffic.

3. Risk mitigation: Platforms should avoid blindly encouraging price competition, which would disrupt the price perception system of offline stores. Instead, they should empower merchants to build differentiated products and services, help merchants improve user loyalty, and pursue long-term collaborative growth with merchants, to avoid harming the overall industry ecosystem through cutthroat competition.

This article outlines the latest developments in China’s convenience store industry, and is a useful reference for retail industry researchers. Key takeaways below:

1. New industry trends: China’s convenience store industry has officially entered a new operating cycle, ending the high-growth era driven by rapid store opening and scale expansion. Today, the industry is sharply diverged: over 70% of operators have seen falling foot traffic, but 18.3% have achieved simultaneous growth in sales and profit. Brands that focus on deep regional penetration and localization innovation have outperformed, and second-tier cities and lower-tier markets still offer room for steady store expansion.

2. New industry challenges: Convenience stores now face competitive pressure from all channels: snack aggregation stores, discount stores, on-demand retail and e-commerce have split off customer segments with different needs. Most operators still rely on the outdated strategy of competing for customers through price cuts and promotions, and lack the capability to use data to diagnose operational problems, leading to continued profit erosion from excessive discounting.

3. New business model direction: In the future, the convenience store business model will shift from "operating stores" to "operating customers". Brands will drive visits through original and limited-edition products, boost repeat purchase loyalty through membership operations, online-offline integration and diverse life services, and eventually transform into core community infrastructure. This evolutionary direction of the new business model warrants further in-depth research.