Source | Retail Business Finance At the 2025 China Convenience Store Conference Summit Forum, the topic 'Products are the primary productivity of convenience stores' sparked heated discussion. Currently, while the convenience store industry maintains expansion, store operational capabilities are declining, and the rapid rise of bulk snack discount stores is also impacting traditional convenience store formats. Facing industry challenges, the overall market shows three significant changes: First, companies with solid fundamentals demonstrate stronger competitive advantages in product strength, operational strength, and organizational strength; Second, the gap between leading and mid-tier companies is widening, with regional consolidation becoming more pronounced; Third, the space for convenience store market penetration is narrowing, and operators have shifted their development focus from exploring new markets to deepening regional markets. In terms of operational strategy, companies are gradually moving from the standardized management of 'a thousand stores with one face' to the refined operations of 'a thousand stores with a thousand faces.' Category planning is becoming more precise, focusing on creating hit products and introducing personalized items. The product structure is also shifting from mainly standard products to increasing the proportion of private brands and fresh food items with regional characteristics. Product selection standards no longer solely pursue high gross margins but place greater emphasis on product quality and food safety. It is thus evident that products are not only the foundation of daily convenience store operations but also the key fulcrum for companies to drive digital transformation and strengthen supply chain capabilities. In the future, convenience store practitioners must continuously innovate and deepen operations around product strength to consolidate industrial synergy and stand out in the new era of retail transformation. Driving Category Management Upgrades BCG & Ansoff Matrix to Boost Sales Category management has become widely popular in the retail sector in recent years. Its essence is not just a technique for product display and classification but a customer-demand-oriented operational strategy. The core of this strategy is to treat products as independent 'category units' for systematic planning, data analysis, and optimization, aiming to enhance the overall sales contribution and customer value of the category. In retail scenarios like convenience stores with high sales per square meter and short customer flow lines, the effectiveness of category management directly determines store operational efficiency because precise category strategies maximize the product efficiency of limited space, while inefficient management may lead to customer loss. Category management addresses core retail operational issues through scientific models: what products to sell (category structure), how many SKUs to configure (product width), which specifications to choose (product attributes), how to design promotions (marketing rhythm), how to control new product introduction frequency (product iteration), and how to plan display logic (space efficiency). More importantly, category management can achieve a win-win-win situation for consumers, channels, and suppliers: enhancing consumer shopping experience through precise demand matching, improving channel operational efficiency through resource optimization, and enhancing supplier product strength through data collaboration, transforming traditional retail channel conflicts into rational resource allocation and one-way selling into precise demand satisfaction. However, in actual operations, category management faces multiple challenges: first, sales growth bottlenecks caused by declining product strength; second, pressure to eliminate inefficient SKUs due to evolving consumer demand; and the biggest challenge comes from cross-industry competition for customer mindshare. Facing these challenges, companies typically follow steps such as data analysis, market research, and competitive benchmarking. By mining sales data to identify category trends and individual product performance, using market research to capture changes in consumer demand, and observing competitor stores to optimize product selection logic. At the execution level, product promotion and delisting decisions need to comprehensively consider multi-dimensional indicators such as category contribution rate, individual product sell-through rate, customer repurchase frequency, and life cycle stage, ensuring that every product adjustment serves the overall operational goals. Figure: Key Points of Data Analysis From the breadth of data analysis, basic dimensions include sales amount, sales volume, and gross profit, while refined dimensions include indicators such as average item price, average transaction value, and customer purchase ratio. These multi-dimensional data form the basic framework for product analysis. In terms of analysis depth, whether at the category, sub-category, or individual product level, these basic dimensions are the core of analysis. By breaking down data layer by layer, not only can the full-dimensional performance of each product be clearly presented, but also data insights can be used to replace old products with new ones, ensuring that the product structure dynamically matches market demand. Here we can cite the assistance of the BCG and Ansoff matrices. Traditional category management often relies on static data such as sales rankings, inventory turnover rates, or gross margins as the basis for product selection. However, in the current era of diversified customer preferences and complex competitive environments, a single static indicator is no longer sufficient to accurately capture market changes. At this point, introducing strategic analysis tools such as the BCG Matrix (also known as the Boston Matrix) and the Ansoff Matrix can help companies re-examine category positioning from the dynamic perspective of 'product life cycle' and 'market growth strategy,' and formulate more forward-looking product selection and promotion strategies. The BCG Matrix, as a classic product portfolio analysis tool, uses two key indicators—'market growth rate' and 'market share'—to determine the positioning of each category or product in the market (such as stars, cash cows, question marks, and dogs), thereby guiding companies in resource allocation and operational strategy decisions to achieve optimal category portfolio management. Figure: BCG Matrix Another important tool to assist category management is the Ansoff Matrix, also known as the 'Product/Market Growth Matrix,' proposed by strategic management scholar Igor Ansoff. Its core function is to help companies systematically plan growth directions and formulate strategic choices in the dynamic context of product and market development. This matrix uses 'product' and 'market' as two core dimensions, constructing four strategic quadrants: existing products with existing markets, existing products with new markets, new products with existing markets, and new products with new markets. Through this framework, companies can clearly define the positioning of different categories in terms of 'product newness' and 'market coverage,' and then formulate targeted strategies for market penetration, market development, product extension, or diversification, providing path guidance from the strategic level to the execution level for category management. Figure: Ansoff Strategy Types Taking the strategic logic of the Ansoff Matrix as an example, traditional convenience stores introducing coffee categories to break the original product structure is precisely the 'new product × existing market' product development strategy: without changing the core customer base, they activate existing consumption scenarios by filling category gaps (such as freshly made beverages). This logic also applies to the promotion of ready-to-eat foods like fresh and hot foods, all of which involve tapping into the consumption potential of existing customers by expanding new product lines. On the other hand, some brands include bulk-packaged goods and fresh food in their product selection, aiming to enter the new scenario of 'family needs' from the traditional 'individual immediate consumption' scenario. Such strategies can be classified as 'new product × new market' diversification: they not only introduce large-format packaging and fresh categories that differ from regular convenience store products (new products), but also target family users, a customer group not previously deeply covered (new market), expanding incremental space through cross-scenario category extension. The 'pet business opportunity' food and supplies that have risen in recent years are typical diversification strategy practices: whether pet main food, snacks, or supplies, they are not traditional convenience store categories (new products), and their target customers (pet-owning families) go beyond the original core customer base of convenience stores (new market), fully conforming to the 'new product × new market' dual-new combination positioning in the Ansoff Matrix. From 'A Thousand Stores with One Face' to 'A Thousand Stores with a Thousand Faces' From 'Standardization' to 'Precision' In the early stages of convenience store format expansion, the breakthrough from 0 to 1 relied on 'standardization' strategies to achieve rapid replication: unified decoration styles, SOP processes, category structures, display methods, and marketing strategies, building the scale advantage of a thousand stores with one face. However, when store scale exceeds hundreds or thousands, diversified consumer demands and differentiated business district structures become prominent, and excessive standardization becomes a bottleneck for performance growth. When convenience stores move from standardization to precision, the 'ledger' is no longer just a single template formulated by headquarters but becomes a 'product database' close to the local business district. This is the core concept of the 'business district ledger': configuring the most suitable product portfolio based on business district attributes. This management tool matches the most appropriate product portfolio by analyzing the characteristics of different business districts (such as residential communities, office areas, and transportation hubs): for example, community stores with 25 shelves will focus on family consumption needs, increasing the display proportion of prepared foods and household hardware; while commercial area stores with dense foot traffic will strengthen impulse purchases, expanding the display space for leisure foods and ready-to-drink beverages. Figure: Business District Ledger This 'category-location correlation strategy' allows convenience stores to move from standardization to 'a thousand stores with a thousand faces,' improving sales per square meter and turnover efficiency while deepening customer stickiness. The Hidden Cost of Business District Ledgers: The Dilemma of Product Delisting Establishing a business district ledger is not difficult; the core difficulty lies in managing delisted products caused by dynamic adjustments:

  1. Discount clearance: A simple and common method, usually setting up a clearance area next to the counter or on a dedicated shelf. However, seasonal or slow-moving products have weak demand, and price reduction promotions often have limited effect, potentially leading to inventory backlog.
  2. Reverse logistics recovery: Recovering products through reverse supply chain operations can avoid gross profit loss and free up shelf space. However, actual implementation is limited by multiple factors: the labor and transportation costs of reverse logistics cannot be ignored, and supplier recovery terms need to be clearly agreed upon in advance contracts, requiring strong supply chain negotiation capabilities, and not all products are suitable for this model. Execution Variables: Difficulty and Challenges of Implementing Business District Ledgers under 'A Thousand Stores with a Thousand Faces' There are two key variables in the implementation of business district ledgers:
  3. Standardization of business district classification: Companies need to establish clear data indicators and classification standards to avoid execution deviations caused by subjective judgments from different departments;
  4. The particularity of the franchise system: Unlike the headquarters-controlled product model in Taiwan, in mainland China, most convenience store franchisees own the products, and this property rights difference directly affects the promotion method of business district ledgers, requiring targeted design in supply chain coordination and benefit distribution mechanisms. Essentially, the 'dynamic update' of business district ledgers tests the overall operational efficiency and maturity of the logistics system, especially the ability to manage product life cycles. From Category Planning to Product Life Cycle Management Under the trend of refined product management in convenience stores, categories are no longer simple display labels but the core link connecting store strategies. Category planning is the starting point of product strategy, covering product portfolio design, price band structure configuration, and traffic flow planning, with the ultimate goal of allowing customers to quickly find products they need and are willing to buy within limited sales per square meter. To strengthen seasonal sensitivity and marketing rhythm, many companies have introduced the '52-week MD' system, breaking down annual operations into 52 weekly units, dynamically adjusting product planning and display themes based on solar terms, business district attributes, and consumption habits. For example, the New Year goods zone before the Lunar New Year, the stationery and beverage combination for the school season, and the travel supplies display for winter and summer vacations are all coordinated through this system, improving response speed to hot topics and seasonal demands, making promotions and inventory turnover more forward-looking. Figure: 52-Week MD Architecture However, the real management challenge begins with product delisting. The complete cycle from introduction, growth, maturity to decline requires precise data indicators to drive decisions: Is the sell-through rate during the trial period of new products up to standard? Do mature products still have growth potential? Should slow-moving products adjust promotion strategies or be directly replaced? Product management in convenience stores has evolved from a single 'item introduction' to a comprehensive management system including 'category design × cycle strategy × business district differences × exit mechanism.' Only when product strategy is highly coordinated with store data, business district characteristics, marketing cycles, and supply chain capabilities can it truly enter the stage of refined management. Conclusion In recent years, in the retail industry, especially in the convenience store sector, besides 'category management,' another keyword that has attracted much attention is 'refined management.' This concept was mostly applied to operations departments in the past, such as the implementation of standard operating procedures and the optimization of store staffing. However, as market competition intensifies, not only from peers but also from cross-industry formats, convenience stores can no longer rely solely on the refinement of operations departments to support overall competitiveness. Therefore, the scope of refined management is expanding comprehensively, gradually extending to product departments, development departments, and even overall corporate strategy. From increasing store exposure, customer conversion into the store, purchase completion, and subsequent repeat purchase behavior, every node needs to be precisely grasped and optimized. In this complete chain, products are undoubtedly the most core and critical link. Only when products truly meet customer needs, align with business district characteristics, and possess competitiveness and differentiation can they drive the positive cycle of overall traffic conversion and operational performance. Refinement is no longer just an operational slogan but a comprehensive, systematic shift in business thinking.