The growth of SPAR in China has largely been driven by the launch of world-class convenience stores in the urban centres of key Chinese cities. Benefiting from the global expertise that exist within the SPAR worldwide network, our Chinese partners have introduced the latest proven SPAR convenience formats. A SPAR convenience store in Guangdong province in southern China is outperforming SPAR Guangdong’s larger sized supermarkets.

SPAR Futongzizaicheng is located in Dongguan City’s Guancheng District, where newly built compounds have been erected in an old residential area, creating a melting pot of both traditional and modern cultures. The area is densely populated with local residents and office workers who make regular use of the store for either top-up shops or grab-and-go meal solutions.

Covering a sales area of 267m², SPAR Futongzizaicheng boasts over 2,800 SKUs. The category assortments have been carefully selected, taking into consideration the best practice learning from other SPAR Partners in terms of convenience.

Fresh and foodservice

Due to SPAR Futongzizaicheng’s compact space, the layout has been carefully considered to meet the needs of shoppers and ensure easy navigation through the store based on destination departments such as fruit & veg and Food-to-Go. The fresh produce section is located at the entrance and is therefore the first department the shopper encounters, creating an immediate impression of choice and freshness.

There are a wide range of product categories including Food-for-Now, Food-to-Go and general merchandising. In contrast to other SPAR Guangdong stores, 50% of SPAR Futongzizaicheng’s sales are from the fresh and food service sections – primarily ready-to-eat meals, fruits & vegetables and chilled and frozen foods.

The vegetables are harvested and packaged on a daily basis, with a number of special offers available in fresh fruits and vegetables, highlighting SPAR’s value-for-money offerings and its focus on the promotion of healthy eating.

The food service section offers a wide range of ready-to-eat food including noodles, sushi and other food solutions supplied from the SPAR Guangdong food production centre. The dry food section makes up 25% of the store’s turnover, while 15% of sales comes from non-food sections, including health & beauty and home cleaning products.

Customer convenience first 

The store is open from 7am to 10pm seven days a week, with additional staff to help out during busy peak hours. A number of convenience-based services are offered, such as home delivery and pre-ordering.

In addition, a Wechat business group messaging service has been created to send subscribers messages about promotions, new arrivals, lost and found items etc. This is a very helpful tool for keeping connected with loyal customers and there are currently over 300 followers who subscribe to the service.

The store accepts mobile payment from Alipay and Wechat Pay, and provides a free WiFi and mobile phone charging station for shoppers to take a break and relax in the welcoming space.

Source: SPAR China

About SPAR China:

SPAR was introduced to China with the signing of the licence agreement for Shandong Province in 2004. This was followed by the addition of more partners, and now SPAR is operational in nine provinces: Shandong, Guangdong, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, Beijing, Sichuan, Henan, Hubei and Hebei.

The privately owned retail chains licensed to operate SPAR have a cooperative relationship in line with the original SPAR mission of working together to reduce costs, maximise sales and increase profits. The SPAR China Partners, whilst part of a leading international group, maintain 100% local ownership.