The retail “grocery” industry has three main players: Wal*Mart; Supermarkets (such as Kroger and Safeway); and, Independents (C-Stores, neighborhood grocers, and ethnic stores). Together their sales make-up approximately 25% of the $2.2 trillion of USA retail sales (approximately $550 Billion).
The Commerce Department reports approximately 11,000 Supermarkets and Independents (including C-Stores) with total revenues of $500 Billion which includes $70 Billion of non-grocery sales (Conventional Grocery Market). An additional 97,000 “other” establishments generate $47 billion of the $220 billion reported under the Commerce Department’s “Other” category. They include ethnic markets, health food stores, corner grocers, speciality shops, and liquor stores The 97,000 establishments are under-reported in government and commercial surveys.
“Big” stores — what we think of as Supermarkets — are either supplied by major distributors, such as Supervalue and Fleming, or from their own warehouses. Major distributors concentrate on stores that buy more than $600,000 per year. Smaller stores mainly buy from speciality distributors and Independent Wholesale Distribution Centers (often called “Cash & Carrys,” not to be confused with retailers who call themselves Cash & Carrys).
Supermarkets and Independent Wholesale Distribution Centers (approximately 40,000 stores) are candidates for regular CRISP. Candidates for CRISP-sm (small merchant) software include
- 97,000 “other”
stores
- approximately 2,500 of the small 3,369 single-unit supermarkets and 27,568 of the 70,306 convenience stores shown in the Conventional Grocery Market Table.
DataLiquor Millennium software has been tailored to the special requirements of alcohol beverage stores.
