Special item market

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A cheap store in downtown Bochum

A special item market is a form of business in retail that is characterized by a constantly changing range of products from the low-price sector . They are also known colloquially as junk shops .

Small special item markets in city centers are often operated by sole proprietorships. In some cases, special item markets are also operated as supra-regional retail chains , supplied from huge central warehouses. Supraregional retail chains include Tedi , Thomas Philipps , Schum EuroShop , Pfennigpfeiffer and Mäc-Geiz . Another characteristic of special item markets is that the employees often work in the low-wage sector.

range

In contrast to discounters , special item stores often do not have any core items in their range on a permanent basis. It is usually characterized by the extensive avoidance of food (“non-food”). Typical assortments are low-priced household items, low-quality tools, fashion accessories, decorative items, stationery. The range of products is usually small. In contrast to the discounters, which nowadays often even offer goods from the three-digit euro price range at favorable conditions, special item markets are usually limited to low-priced product ranges (between 99 cents and well under a hundred euros).

Location and appearance

Special item markets are a manifestation of so-called downtrading , i.e. the increase in ever cheaper and inferior goods offers in the course of the "desertification" of inner cities and the migration of retailers to the green field . They use vacant shops with reduced rent, often in B-locations of pedestrian zones , or vacant commercial properties and warehouses on low-rent suburban locations.

The design of the branches is usually very simple depending on the range of goods and the location; decorations or a more elaborate presentation of the goods are usually dispensed with. In shops run by sole proprietorships, the furnishings often have a rather improvised character in that the premises have hardly been renovated or shop fittings from previous tenants are simply used.

Range of customers

On the one hand, your customer base consists of the population with poor purchasing power. Another important part of the customers are impulse buyers who are encouraged to buy without current demand through conspicuous product advertisements (e.g. numerous "rummaging tables" and presenters in front of the store), highlighting low price thresholds ("every item 99 cents") and the like become.

Distribution channels

Other types of retail operations, particularly discounters, but also department stores and hardware stores, drugstores and textile chains, have increasingly integrated permanent special item departments or temporary special item campaigns into their offerings. However, the discounters only use a small range of special items, the so-called fast- moving items , which can largely be sold off within a few days.

Special cases of special item markets are so-called "1 euro shops", where a large part of the range of goods costs 1 euro or 99 cents (the items are then "cheap", but not necessarily "worth their price", because the actual value of the goods is often significantly below).

The assortments of the no longer existing Metzen chain formed an extreme case. After the collapse of the GDR, Metzen bought goods from old GDR factories and former NVA stocks. Among other things, Metzen sold NVA gas masks at penny prices , most of them not even functional.

Another sales channel for special items can be the so-called flying trade . Here the goods are not offered for sale in stationary stores, but for example directly from the truck container, in warehouses rented by the week, at fairs or flea markets .

Sources of goods

The range of origins of the special items consists of (among other things):

The markets are usually supplied by wholesalers who specialize in special items. The countries of origin of the products on offer are predominantly to be found in East Asia (China or Hong Kong, Vietnam, etc.).

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