Yet another new term is about to enter retail vocabulary and
it is “dark store”, a store with no customers. A dark store is a dedicated
store for online sales and the term probably arose from developments in the
supermarket category.
Online supermarket sales were often handled by individual
stores in the neighbourhood of the customer. But it was soon found that
dedicated stores or warehouses could handle online orders more efficiently than
stores dedicated to foot traffic customers.
Dark stores are laid out like a supermarket but with
variations to suit online buying habits. For instance, a large proportion of
online customers are families with children so the space devoted to things like
nappies, toilet paper, and washing powder are different to traditional
supermarkets.
Online food buying represents only around 2% of total food
sales but with the trend on the rise, we can expect more dark stores to be
built.