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(Photo= Yonhap news) |
[Alpha Biz= Reporter Kim Sangjin] Convenience stores are reportedly taking excessive profits from small suppliers and franchise owners, raising concerns that the benefits of the industry's continuous growth are not being distributed fairly.
On the 14th, the Korea Federation of Small and Medium Enterprises (KOSME) released findings from a survey of 369 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and intermediaries supplying convenience stores, revealing that the profit margin for products supplied by SMEs to convenience stores averages 43.2%. For products supplied by intermediaries to convenience store headquarters, the margin reaches 46.6%.
The profit margin, defined as the difference between the selling price and the supply price as a percentage of the selling price, indicates that higher margins result in greater profits for convenience stores. In contrast, previous surveys showed that profit margins for large discount stores and department stores are 20.4% and 22.8%, respectively, confirming that convenience stores maintain higher margins.
Among direct suppliers, GS25, operated by GS Retail, reported the highest margin at 45.7%, followed by Emart24 (45.3%), CU (41.8%), and Seven Eleven (40.4%).
Additionally, when including logistics costs and order incentives, suppliers end up paying more than half the product price to convenience stores. Notably, 93.1% of direct suppliers bear logistics costs, while significant proportions also incur order incentives (26.6%), sales incentives (26.1%), display incentives (14.9%), and information usage fees (11.7%).
On average, companies incurring logistics costs spend about 11.3% of their revenue on these expenses. The breakdown includes order incentives at 5.0%, sales incentives at 4.9%, display incentives at 4.0%, and information usage fees at 1.2%.
Alphabiz Reporter Kim SangJin(letyou@alphabiz.co.kr)
