Editing Convenience store (section)

===United Kingdom===
{{see also|List of convenience shops in the United Kingdom}}

[[File:Corrie Corner Shop.jpg|thumb|right|A corner shop set from the [[soap opera]] ''[[Coronation Street]]'', depicting a typical British independently owned corner shop in Manchester]]
The corner shop in the United Kingdom grew from the start of the [[Industrial Revolution in the United Kingdom|Industrial Revolution]], with large populations moving from the agricultural countryside to newly built model townships and later [[Terraced houses in the United Kingdom|terraced housing]] in towns and cities. Corner shops were locally owned small businesses, started by entrepreneurs who often had other careers prior to establishing, such a trading business. Many well-known high street retail brands, such as [[Marks and Spencer]], [[Sainsbury's]] and latterly [[Tesco]], originated during the [[Victorian era]] as simple, family-owned corner shops.

The name '''corner shop''' originated because such shops are traditionally located on the corner of an intersection.

The reign of the corner shop and the weekly market started to fade post–World War II, with the combination of the personal motor car and the introduction from the 1950s onwards of the American-originated [[supermarket]] format. The market shift in price and convenience led to the establishment of common trading brands operating as virtual [[Franchising|franchise]]s to win back the consumer, including: [[Budgens]], [[Costcutter]], [[Londis (United Kingdom)|Londis]], [[Nisa (retailer)|Nisa]] and [[SPAR]]. There was also a consolidation of some shops under some larger corporate-owned brands, including [[One Stop]].

The primary competition to this privately owned 'corner shop' model came from the network of [[consumer cooperatives]] which were created after the success of that created by the [[Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers]] in 1844. Rather than being owned by individuals, these shops were owned by their customer-members and, owing to their popularity, the number of co-operative shops had reached 1,439 by 1900.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.co-operative.coop/about-us/history|title=Co-op history|website=www.co-operative.coop}}</ref> Co-operatives came about as a response to the problem of [[adulterated food]] which existed at the time, and later they enabled members to buy types of food that they would otherwise be unable to afford. At their peak in the 1950s, consumers' co-operatives accounted for approximately 20%<ref>{{cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/5294184.stm|title=Co-op rebrand sees 'divi' return|date=29 August 2006|work=BBC News}}</ref> of the UK grocery market; however with increasing competition this has decreased to around 6% in 2015.

Due to a number of [[mergers]] over the years, the grocery co-operative sector in the UK is now predominately composed of the national [[The Co-operative Group]] and a few large regional co-operative societies such as the [[Midcounties Co-operative]] and [[Scotmid]]. Today, the majority of [[British co-operative movement|food retailing co-operatives societies]] brand their convenience shops as [[Co-op Food]], and together they form the second-largest convenience shop chain in the UK and the largest by number of shops, with one in every UK postal code.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-32715723|title=Co-op boss: Group 'let down' by former management|work=BBC News|date=13 May 2015}}</ref>

[[File:Corner Shop, Brandram Rd - geograph.org.uk - 7537514.jpg|thumb|right|A modern British corner shop in [[Lee, London|Lee]], [[Lewisham]]]]
From the late-1960s onwards, many such shops started to be owned by expatriate African-born Indians, expelled from their homelands by the newly independent countries' rulers (see [[Expulsion of Asians from Uganda]]). Under the [[Shops Act 1950]], Sunday trading had been illegal for most traders, with exceptions only allowed for small shops selling perishable items (i.e. milk, bread, butter, fresh meat and vegetables), and most shops that were not [[off licence]]s (i.e. selling alcohol) had to close at 20:00. The [[Sunday Trading Act 1994]] allowed large-format shops over {{Convert|280|m2|sp=us}} in size to open on Sunday for not more than six hours despite several proposals from the citizens to remove restrictions at different times.<ref>{{Cite news |last1=Mason |first1=Rowena |last2=correspondent |first2=Rowena Mason Political |date=2016-02-02 |title=Government revives plans to amend Sunday trading laws |url=https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/feb/02/government-plans-amend-sunday-trading-laws |access-date=2024-07-01 |work=The Guardian |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Conway |first=Lorraine |date=April 2022 |title=Shop opening hours and Sunday trading |url=https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN05522/SN05522.pdf}}</ref>

More recently, due to a combination of competition laws and a lack of large-scale development space, many of the larger retail brands have now developed shop formats based around convenience shop and corner shop scale spaces, including [[Sainsbury's Local]], [[Waitrose & Partners#Convenience shop and little Waitrose|Little Waitrose]] and [[Tesco Express]].