I.

Rationale

Convenience stores are the small scaled retail shops that are

selling different things in every day usage like groceries, toiletries, and

many more. These stores are offering the minimal services that can be

used like telephone booths, charging stations, and loading stations. These

kind of stores are usually doing their business in urbanized areas or close

to a business’s hub with offices.

In the year 2017, it was a year with new changes in the

convenience stations, and according to Parrott (2018) that they estimate

the growth of the convenience stores to 1.5% more, due to fresh food and

food to go offerings. This shows the small scaled market retailers to

competition with big operators, often with international experience.

Characteristically it is likely that these leading retailers will seek to

leverage their greater degree of sophistication in location planning into this

sub-market - essentially “raising the bar” in small store sales forecasting

meaning competing neighborhood retailers will themselves have to

become more sophisticated in their techniques.

 The operating system of convenience stores is facing crossover

revolution by providing multiple services, including daily fresh foods,

ticketing, and a grocery. It means that the convenience stores provides

greater access to foods and beverages than supermarkets or small

grocery stores or even the neighborhood convenience store or what they

call the sari-sari store and thus influence food choice and consumption.

Through the years, competition was becoming more intense in the retail

industry and it has become more centralized and diversified. As a fast

developing stores, they have taken much more burden than they used to

do. Though the most important one among is to how to maintain the

attraction of customer for convenience stores.

On the contrary, marketing strategies are changing constantly due

to the fierce competition of the new companies that are also new to the

global markets with great talent in imitation of new products. In addition,

the customer’s has their own preferrability and purchase decision.

Costumers are very price conscious that some entrepreneurs had to

adjust just to gain more profit and sustain their competitive market.

Furthermore, what the customer’s demand are very significant and it plays

a major role for the business to be successful, and for that particular

reason, so many scholars have given attention to the significance of

customers’ satisfaction, customers’ loyalty and also customer retention

(Hoq & Amin, 2010).

Consumer loyalty has been viewed as a standout amongst the

most unmistakable factors in the estimation of promoting techniques and

exhibitions. Then again, gainfulness and estimation of firm are essential

pointers of organizations' money related execution (Sun, K.A.& Kim, D.Y.

2011).

In most small businesses, it is always important to focus on existing

customers rather than achieving new customers. In most cases, the cost

of acquiring new customers is always more expensive and time

consuming than maintaining current customer relation. Better customer

service helps to achieve customer satisfaction and increases customer

loyalty. Loyal and satisfied customers are an asset to any businesses

since they are willing to pay even higher prices in order to continue the

services for long terms (Kostojohn, Johnson & Paulen. 2011).

In value based pricing the customers cognition is used as the key

criterion in pricing and it should be noted here that the value for customer

does not mean low prices for the product or the service (Sarokolaee &

Taghizadeh & Ebrati, 2012). And also Store layout is an important factor

affecting consumer behaviour and a critical determinant towards the

creation of store image. Well-designed layouts are extremely important

because they strongly influence in-store traffic patterns, shopping

atmosphere, shopping behaviour, and operational efficiency.

In the local context, Tagbilaran City which is the capital of Bohol is

the main center for commerce, trade, and industry, health, entertainment,

and education. There are 15 communities comprising Tagbilaran, with a

population of 105,051 in the census for the year 2015, and an annual

growth rate of 1.57%. Forty-four percent of the city’s population resides in

the four urban districts where trade and commerce are also concentrated

(Philippine Statistics Authority, 2016). There are more than 25

convenience stores in the city. About ten branches are from the same

corporation, which leads us to think that expansion of these stores in this

city is very beneficial both to the customers and managers.

Although the city is not foreign to the establishment of 24-hour

convenience stores, the rate of these stores’ growth in population is still

not at its peak. These stores do not grow parallel to the needs of the

Boholanos even at midnight until dawn. Since Tagbilaran, a booming city

is still busy even at night and at dawn, people are always on the lookout

for 24-hour convenience stores that could cater to their needs when the

malls and the convenience stores operating during normal hours are
closed. Only a few businessmen were able to acquire the means and

requirements for a convenience store to operate for 24 hours.

To build up a more comprehensive and worldwide viewpoint, assist

replications of this investigation are important to look at the strength of our

outcomes in different settings. It has featured that entrepreneurs working

in an establishment framework should focus on the significance of

relationship quality, faithfulness, and collaboration in balancing out

diversifying connections and upgrading upper hand. The lion's share of

concentrates on diversifying connections have nearly been solely led in a

Western setting. To date, there have been practically no investigations

that investigate the association be-tween relationship quality,

unwaveringness, and participation in a diversifying relationship in an

Eastern setting (Nedungadi P, Hutchinson JW.2007).

 II. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

This study intends to understand the views and experiences of the

selected students on the preferability and accessibility of convenience

stores, this will answer the following questions:

1. What is your perception on convenience stores?

2. Do you think convenience stores are more preferable? In terms of:

2.1. Food Quality

2.2. Price

2.3. Comfortability

3. How is the accessibility of convenience stores? In terms of:

3.1. Distance

3.2. Convenience

3.3. Varieties

3.4. Availability
 III. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

Convenience Stores

Despite an increasingly convenience-oriented society, very few

empirical studies have identified convenience as a salient determinant of

store patronage. Such atypical findings could be due to the way in which

academics have defined store convenience. The purpose of this study is

to empirically develop an alternative definition of store convenience

(Reimers, 2014).

Empirical analysis provides strong support for the alternative

definition, with respondents indicating that 25 of the test attributes serve

as convenience attributes in the context of a department store (Reimers,

2014).

In spite of the many things a store manager can do to make their

store more convenient, academic studies have recognised very few of

these as convenience attributes (Reimers, 2014).

This definition represents a significant increase over any existing

definition. The failure of existing definitions to incorporate so many of

these attributes may explain why academic research has suggested that,
in an era of convenience, convenience itself is a less-than-salient

determinant of store patronage (Reimers, 2014).

While there is no universal definition of “convenience store”, for the

purposes of this literature review, stores had to meet these requirements:

(i) less than 2,00 square feet; (ii) four aisles or less; and (iii) one cash

register. The terms “corner store” and “convenience store” are used

interchangeably throughout this report (Sandoval, Karpyn, & Aquilante,

2012).

Accessibility

It was mentioned that as for many interdisciplinary topics, business

models are often mentioned but rarely analyzed. This might also be one of

the reasons why research on accessibility based business models in B2C

markets is scarce. Next to this, Capgemini Consulting wishes to

strengthen its services on “consumer driven strategy” and can use

knowledge on accessibility based business models to advise clients on

how to transform towards an accessibility based business model, and also

how to improve an existing accessibility based business model (Teece

2010)
 Several reasons for consumers to make use of accessibility based

offerings can be thought of. According to Drury et al. (2012), this type of

offering can reduce the upfront cost for consumers, meaning that more

luxurious products become available for customers who could not afford

this before, leading to market potential in new market segments (Mont,

Dalhammar, and Jacobsson, 2006). Additionally, because the product

stays under ownership of the company, consumers are released of

responsibilities for the product, like its maintenance and repairs ( Lawson,

2011; Beltagui, 2011).

a. Distance

There is no doubt that distance‐related research is one of the most

important streams within international business (IB) (Zaheer et al. 2012).

As such, the concept of distance is certainly among those that dictate the

priorities and concerns, and the theoretical advancement of the field.

However, some scholars have argued that we are on the wrong track

(Shenkar 2012; Zaheer et al. 2012).

b. Availability

A recent study in the Texas border region found that Mexican-origin

children who reported very low food security consumed greater amounts
of calories, fat, and added sugars than food-secure children. In response

to an imbalance in availability between healthier and less healthy foods,

research has focused on aspects of the neighborhood food environment,

primarily spatial access to supermarkets (Sharkee et al. 2012). However,

convenience stores may provide greater access to foods and beverages

than supermarkets or small grocery stores and thus influence food choice

and consumption, especially in underserved areas and among children

and adolescents (Zenk et al. 2009).

c. Varieties

Variety is a quality similar to diversity or difference. Some feel

having variety in life is much more exciting than doing the same routine

day in and day out. Limited access to healthier food is being addressed in

urban areas through a variety of policy options to increase spatial access

to a wider variety of healthier foods through store placement by

encouraging the location of supermarkets and/or restricting fast foods

(Bleich et al. 2012). However, these policy options overlook instore

marketing of foods and beverages, which influences consumer behavior.

(Inman et al. 2009).

 d. Convenience

There are several factors that determines visits to convenience

stores, which are: ease of access, store atmosphere, promotions and

price, and the human resources factor. First factors related to the

magnitude of physical effort by the consumer to reach locations. Ideally,

the store is located in a place that is very easy to reach, so that consumer

have an easiness in access, parking lots, and security. The second factor

is the store atmosphere factors, where these factors are aimed at the

consumer senses that give positive feelings towards the store. Promotions

and price factors considered have correlation because of sales promotion

activities became a bundling strategy. The bundling strategy is

implemented as discounts and rewards. The last factor is the human

resources where the convenience store is actually a service business, and

human resources play an important role in the successful delivery of

services (Lloyd et al. 2014).

Preferrability

In generic terms this clustering of stores compared to solitary store

locations is favored by both consumers and tenants. Consumers are often

attracted to agglomerations since they offer a greater selection of products

in one place and the shopping experiences can be facilitated and enriched

overall by infrastructural facilities (Teller et al. 2008)

Also, the former “created” retail agglomerations include shopping

malls, galleries, strip centers or factory outlets; whereas the latter

“evolved” retail agglomerations encompass town centers, shopping strips

or high/shopping streets, retail parks, and the like (Berman and Evans,

2009).

a. Food Quality

Food quality is the quality characteristics of food that is acceptable

to consumers. This includes external factors as appearance, texture, and

flavour; factors such as federal grade standards and internal. Food quality

in the United States is enforced by the Food Safety Act 1990. Members of

the public complain to trading standards professionals, who submit

complaint samples and also samples used to routinely monitor the food

marketplace to public analysts. Public analysts carry out scientific analysis

on the samples to determine whether the quality is of sufficient standard.

Food quality is an important food manufacturing requirement, because

food consumers are susceptible to any form of contamination that may

occur during the manufacturing process. Many consumers also rely on

manufacturing and processing standards, particularly to know what

ingredients are present, due to dietary, nutritional requirements, or

medical conditions. Besides ingredient quality, there are also sanitation

requirements. It is important to ensure that the food processing

environment is as clean as possible in order to produce the safest

possible food for the consumer. (Antonio et al. 2014)

b. Price

Convenient prices reduce the frictions associated with the physical

act of making a transaction when cash is the medium of exchange.

Through their ability to expedite transactions, they reduce the time costs of

making a transaction and waiting in line. Convenient prices also reduce

the amount of change involved in a transaction. This lowers inconvenience

costs for customers who dislike change, reduces time costs for sellers

who must verify and count cash-onhand, and lessens the probability of the

seller making errors and returning the wrong change (Knotek 2008).

c. Comfort

Visual merchandising in food retailing, on the other hand, remains rather

understudied and under-practiced since small margins in food category

often require tight costs control which leads to negligence of visual

merchandising. At the same time, food stores are in particular need of

good store design and good visual merchandising since they sell majority

of merchandise that is easily available in other stores and heavily rely on

self-service. In such circumstances it becomes both a necessity and

extremely hard to differentiate itself from competition. Store design is an

especially difficult task when it comes to grocery and food stores because

consumers generally perceive grocery and food shopping as a task and

not as an experience. When headed for grocery shopping, majority of

customers do not wish for an experience but aim to make a smart, hassle

free and conductive purchase in shortest time possible. Yet, at the same

time, all customer have a minimum they expect to be delivered by a

retailer, regardless is it about product availability and quality, personnel

assistance, store cleanliness, lighting or scents. Even if customers are not

looking for a shopping experience, they sure will notice the lack of one. It

is the task of a retailer to know his customer needs and to excel them.

Those who succeed will gain competitive advantage (Huddlestone 2015).

 Accessibility
Preferrability
- Distance Students’ Views
- Availability and Experiences - Food
- Varieties Quality
- Convenience
on Convenience - Price
Stores - Comfort

Figure 1. Prefer ability and Accessibility of the Selected Students on

the Convenience Stores

 IV. METHODOLOGY

 Research Design

This study on the understanding the views and experiences of the

selected students on the prefer ability and accessibility of convenience

stores is a phenomenological qualitative research design. Qualitative

Research is primarily exploratory research. It is used to gain an

understanding of underlying reasons, opinions, and motivations. The

sample size is typically small, and respondents are selected to fulfil a

given quota.

The researcher used a qualitative approach, specifically of

phenomenology. Phenomenology, as defined by Waters (2017), has a

primary goal which is to describe a “lived experience” of a phenomenon.

As this is a qualitative analysis of narrative data, methods to analyze its

data must be quite different from more traditional or quantitative methods

of research. This will essentially help the research to successfully conduct

the needed procedures.

In this research, phenomenological approach was used to further

analyze the experiences of the students of the selected students with

regard to their views and experiences on convenience stores. The primary

objective of this research is to know their views and experiences of the

selected students on convenience stores.

 Research Site

This study was conducted in Woodridge College. This school is located

at Soldiers Hills IV, Molino Bacoor City, Cavite and is on its 33rd year in

institution. Woodridge College was committed to provide a high-quality

education and train globally competitive students for the future generation.

The location was chosen by the researcher primarily because this

place was efficient and because the Senior High School Curriculum was

being functional at the said school. The locale was also chosen because

the place will be economical for the researcher and nearer from the

vicinity.
 .
Figure 2. Map of Woodridge College Figure 3. Woodridge College
 Respondents

In this study, 12 samples will be gathered by the use of purposive

sampling. Purposive sampling is a type of non-probability sampling which

focuses on identifying the participants in their characteristic of the

population and objective of the study (Crossman, 2017).

The participants are the students of Junior and Senior High School

from Woodridge College. Two from the Grade 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12. All

of the respondents will be asked for their permission by researchers. The

researcher chose them because they are the ones who are always in the

convenience stores. Their grade level, age, and gender will only be

included so that the researcher will be able to keep the privacy of the

respondents.
 Student Grade Level Age Sex
#
Table 1. 1 7 M Demographics
of Participants 2 7 F
3 8 M
 4 8 F
5 9 M
6 9 F
7 10 M
8 10 F
9 11 M
10 11 F
11 12 M
12 12 F

Instrumentation

By conducting a survey, a couple of interview questions will be

used, it is a set of categories designed to elicit information about a

qualitative attribute. With these following steps, it will serve as a guideline

to conduct this whole study.

  Role of the Researcher

The role of the researcher in the study serves as the collecting agent of

information through interview process. The researcher draws essential

questions that answer the problem of the study.

The researcher provides consent to the participants as a form of

agreement on the scope of the study. The researcher debriefs the

participants on the topics about the understanding the views and

experiences of the selected students on the preferrability and accessibility

of convenience stores.

The researcher reports the findings and discusses essential

experiences that sought to expound and explain the views and

experiences of the selected students on the preferrability and accessibility

of convenience stores despite the decline of market of the small scaled

sari-sari stores.

Figure 4. Data Collection Flowchart

  Ethical Consideration

One of the potential ethical issues that the researcher may encounter

is the autonomy of the respondents. Every respondent that were used as

a sample can use their right in autonomy, or voluntarily accepting or

rejecting the invitation to be a sample in the research. It is clearly stated

that the researcher has no right to force the students or the respondents to

have the interview with them.

This study follows standards on ethics. The researcher assures

maximum confidentiality of the participants through setting agreements.

Names will be presented in “pennames” within the context to protect

individual privacy. It is the view of the researcher that the most valid and

reliable information on motivations of a private school comes from self-

report.
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 INTERVIEW GUIDE

Name (Optional): __________________________ Age: _______

Gender: __________

Questions:

1. What is your views on convenience stores?

2. What can you say about the accessibility of convenience

stores?

3. What do you think about the sudden growth of convenience

stores? Do you think it affects the income of traditional sari-

sari stores?
 4. Do you think it is preferable to have convenience store rather

than sari-sari stores? Why?

APPENDIX C

INTERVIEW GUIDE

Name (Optional): __________________________ Age: _______

Gender: __________

Questions:

1. What are the possible benefits that home works can give?

2. Do you think that there is a possible chance that home works

can be a burden to you? How?

3. How does home works affect your lifestyle?

• Social Life
• Mentality

• Emotional state