3 ms·

Paris doesn’t have stores comparable to cvs from what I’ve seen. Monoprix is a grocery store but scaled down.

by soared 7y ago

thaumasiotes 7y ago
> stores comparable to cvs I named them because they're open 24 hours and they seem like the closest fit to a convenience store. CVS is a "drug store", selling products in three basic categories: (1) grooming supplies (hairbrushes / fingernail clippers / makeup... this kind of thing); (2) a very stripped-down grocery inventory, including only prepackaged food (cereal / milk / poptarts / cookies / candy, but no fruit or meat); (3) health products ("nutritional supplements" / vitamins / aspirin / tums / cough drops / etc.). A Family Mart in Shanghai is much smaller and offers different staples: food (including fruit, but largely prepackaged stuff), electronics cables, the machine that lets you pay your mobile phone bill (it's possible I'm out of date here). It's mostly food. Very much unlike CVS, they also offer a space in the store where you can sit and eat what you just bought, and if you bought instant noodles they'll give you boiling water for them. There are American stores closer to that model, like 7-11, but I don't know that they stay open 24 hours. 7-11 is historically named after its operating hours. But I don't really see why that's important; if the mostly-prepackaged-food store is closed, but the prepackaged-food-and-also-cosmetics-and-pills store is open, you can meet your prepackaged food needs there.
- rsynnott 7y ago
  I think CVS-style shops are a uniquely American thing, no? I was pretty confused by them on first visiting San Francisco (why is this a combination of products that makes sense? Is the candy aisle right beside where you buy statins some sort of elaborate joke?)
  - thaumasiotes 7y ago
    I assume they sell candy for the same reason art supply stores sell candy -- it's easy to sell, because people like it. The combination of products is basically "everything you might find at a 'supermarket' in another country, except for the food", and I assume it's that way because grocery stores are primarily dedicated to food. If you took the food out of a Carrefour, what would it be selling? (We also have stores on the "full supermarket" model, Walmart and Target.)

Paris doesn’t have stores comparable to cvs from what I’ve seen. Monoprix is a grocery store but scaled down.

by soared 7y ago

Paris doesn’t have stores comparable to cvs from what I’ve seen. Monoprix is a grocery store but scaled down.

> stores comparable to cvs I named them because they're open 24 hours and they seem like the closest fit to a convenience store. CVS is a "drug store", selling products in three basic categories: (1) grooming supplies (hairbrushes / fingernail clippers / makeup... this kind of thing); (2) a very stripped-down grocery inventory, including only prepackaged food (cereal / milk / poptarts / cookies / candy, but no fruit or meat); (3) health products ("nutritional supplements" / vitamins / aspirin / tums / cough drops / etc.). A Family Mart in Shanghai is much smaller and offers different staples: food (including fruit, but largely prepackaged stuff), electronics cables, the machine that lets you pay your mobile phone bill (it's possible I'm out of date here). It's mostly food. Very much unlike CVS, they also offer a space in the store where you can sit and eat what you just bought, and if you bought instant noodles they'll give you boiling water for them. There are American stores closer to that model, like 7-11, but I don't know that they stay open 24 hours. 7-11 is historically named after its operating hours. But I don't really see why that's important; if the mostly-prepackaged-food store is closed, but the prepackaged-food-and-also-cosmetics-and-pills store is open, you can meet your prepackaged food needs there.

rsynnott 7y ago
I think CVS-style shops are a uniquely American thing, no? I was pretty confused by them on first visiting San Francisco (why is this a combination of products that makes sense? Is the candy aisle right beside where you buy statins some sort of elaborate joke?)
- thaumasiotes 7y ago
  I assume they sell candy for the same reason art supply stores sell candy -- it's easy to sell, because people like it. The combination of products is basically "everything you might find at a 'supermarket' in another country, except for the food", and I assume it's that way because grocery stores are primarily dedicated to food. If you took the food out of a Carrefour, what would it be selling? (We also have stores on the "full supermarket" model, Walmart and Target.)